--- David Bowles <dbowles@educationsupport.fsnet.co.uk> wrote: > > Would that it were so simple. The problem is that you know what you
want
to do, the difficulty is finding out what the application calls it.
Yes and no. To begin with it's not that difficult to make an informed guess as to the top-level menu item below which the function you are after is likely to reside. For example:
'File' menu child functions are usually concerned with operations that work on the document 'as a whole' ...such as 'New', 'Save', 'Save-As', 'Import', etc...
Is it a necessity that one should *standardise* menus in this way? I find it really limiting to think that. One of the reasons I switched to using the CLI is that the CLI allows me to work the way *I* want to, rather than being restricted in this way.
OK, so this tends to get less logical and more application specific as one progresses across the top-level menu items. But it only takes a few seconds to scan the cursor across the full-range of the top-level menu, and with practice you'll find the functions you are looking tend to 'jumps out' at you. Why? Because your mind soon learns to automatically ignore the unwanted functions that are already familiar to you, allowing you to quickly target the one you are after.
So-called "point and click" junkies.
Furthermore once you have mastered a few applications using this standard method of accessing their functions through the drop-down menu system, then when you start to work an a new application you'll quickly discover you already know how to access perhaps 80% or even in excess of 90% of it's basic functionality.
Which is the sad thing, because hidden behind all of that are some powerful tools to be had. -- Thomas Adam ===== "The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- http://linuxgazette.net "TAG Editor" -- http://linuxgazette.net ________________________________________________________________________ Download Yahoo! Messenger now for a chance to win Live At Knebworth DVDs http://www.yahoo.co.uk/robbiewilliams