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Subject:Re: Indicating multilevel picks in menus From:Fred M Jacobson <fred -at- BOOLE -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 6 Dec 1993 11:43:14 PST
Steve Hollander wrote:
> In a recent posting, Fred Jacobsen mentioned using the pipe [|] and various
> other characters to make multilevel picks from menus--for example,
> File|Print
> would mean select File from the Main Menu, and Print from the File menu.
It's interesting that Steve calls the character "pipe." That is, of
course, what it symbolizes in Unix shell commands and MSDOS command
language, but although I have used it as such for _many_ years, I have
been thinking of it as "stroke" in this context - just a separator with
no analogical association.
> In documenting PC programs, I prefer
> File\Print
> and don't find users (May I use that word?) confused about this semi-logical
> extension of directory\subdirectory notation.
Here Steve gives us _his_ analogy. Backslash (or "backslant" in the
military community) means "descend the hierarchy" in the file system,
so why not in the menuing system. Very nice, although I haven't seen
it anywhere else. The product I document runs under Unix, so I could
use "/", but my audience does not necessarily use that notation to
access files.
-Fred
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