Bad Idea To Disable an 'Edit' Menu

[Richard Gaskin]

Richard Gaskin wrote:
> James Spencer wrote:
> 
>> MisterX is incorrect, this is not OS behavior.  The placement
>> of the preferences item at the end of the  Edit menu and then
>> moving it on OS X is pure Rev.
> 
> 
> I think it's a matter of semantics:  It's a Rev issue only because OS X 
> doesn't need to support other operating systems.
> 
> Personally, I see no harm in putting menu items where customers expect 
> them, and much benefit in Rev doing that automatically for us.
> 
> While technically a bug, in practice it should never be an issue:  the 
> Mac HIG has long recommended against disabling the entire Edit menu, and 
> the OS X HIG suggests never disabling menus at all, only items within 
> the menu:
> 
>    Even if all of the items in a menu or submenu are unavailable,
>    the menu or submenu title is not dimmed. The user can still
>    open the menu, but all of its items are dimmed to indicate
>    that these items are not available in the present context.
> 
> <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/chapter_16_section_2.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000957-TP30000356-TPXREF119> 

Ah, but the mystery deepens:

Continuing the sad modern tradition of OS HIGs being driven by edict 
rather than research, it seems we have another OS difference presented 
with no research results available to back up either of the 
contradictions we're asked to accomodate:

On Windows, the HIG sez:

    If all items in a menu are disabled, disable its menu title.
    If you disable a menu item or its title, the user can still
    browse to it or choose it.

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch08b.asp>

Of course, if these OS vendors bothered to do good research they would 
have arrived at the same decision, since the cognitive mechanisms of 
their respective audiences are not likely different, all of them being 
human.

But even though one or both of these vendors is wrong, as Tog reminds me 
the best option is to go with consistency, doing what's most common on 
each platform.  So I guess that means we have one more cross-platform 
gotcha to add to our session next year, Ken. :)

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com