The Menu Bar

J

Joe Kopetz

Registered
Hey everybody. I have sort of an odd question and want to hear your input on it.

The menu bar across the top of our Mac desktops has become a trademark of the Mac OS. It adheres to Fitts law of interface design and provides us an easy place to always access the menus in our apps, but would the Mac still be "the Mac" without it?

One wonderful feature that a single, universal, application menu bar offers is the freedom of not having the menu bar trapped within an applicaiton/document window. This in turn allows us to have several document windows open within one app without having to be confined to a single application window, such as in Windows, Linux, and the majority of *nix.

However, another alternative to the single, universal, application menu bar across the top of the desktop is the single, floating, movable, vertical menu that the NEXTSTEP OS used. This style of system wide menu provides many of the same features that us Mac users have grown to love, including the one I mentioned above. It also provides some additional features that we don't have, such as being detachable from the top edge of the screen, movable (even across multiple monitors), and customizable (allowing for user-defined "tear-away" sub-menus.)

So again I ask, would the Mac still be "the Mac" without the menu bar across the top? If one of Apple's "Top Secret" Leopard features was a redesigned Finder with a new and improved NEXTSTEP style menu system, would the Mac OS have ceased to be the Mac? Would you still use the Mac?

Let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Joe
 
If it worked well, or as good as the current menu bar then there would be absolutly no reason for me to go to windows.

I guess i would start to question the path apple are taking with their OS, but from what i saw in the Leopard demo, im fairly impressed with the way OSX is going

I dont think there would any good reason to change the menu in any way.
 
I really consider the menu bar one of the defining characteristics of the Mac OS. It wouldn't be the Mac without it unless its replacement provided nearly identical functionality. I think that the only reason any other OS uses anything else is because Apple has it patented. Window-based menus are a crime against humanity and make Fitt cry. The NeXT-style toolbar had its advantages, but it was too big, and I believe the cons outweighed the pros in comparison to the Mac menu bar. It was really more like the Dock than the menu bar (in fact, that's where the Dock came from).

The truth is, the only logical places for menu bars are at the very top or very bottom of the screen. Why? Well, floating menus have the same weaknesses as Window-based menus, and a vertically-oriented bar means you need to rely on icons rather than text, and either way it'll be too big (vertically-oriented text is an idea so ill-conceived that I'm surprised it's not in Windows ;)). The Mac-style menu bar is very compact, and could easily be made even smaller without greatly sacrificing usability if Apple felt the need.

The tear-away feature of the NeXT bar is not foreign to the Macintosh. You don't see it very often anymore in OS X (which is a pity, if you ask me), but in the old days, tear-away menus were somewhat common. HyperCard, for instance, had its tools in the menu bar, and you could tear it off to make a floating palette. In OS 8 and 9, you could also tear off the application menu to get the application floater (although strictly speaking, this floater was not a floating version of the menu; it was a separate app that just provided the same functionality).

Improving the menu bar is like improving the wheel; you can enhance it with tires and the like, but it's so natural that any fundamental change would be silly.

Of course, it's always possible somebody will come up with something better, but personally, I doubt we'll see it until the GUI as we know it is dead. Just like we'll keep using wheels until we put anti-gravity pads on everything. :)
 
I think that without the static menubar at the top of the screen Mac OS would lose a bit of its personal identity. It's handy to know that no matter what you're doing the menu is in the same place, rather than at the top of an individual window. I would never want this to change.
 
Mikuro said:
Of course, it's always possible somebody will come up with something better, but personally, I doubt we'll see it until the GUI as we know it is dead. Just like we'll keep using wheels until we put anti-gravity pads on everything. :)
Click to expand...

I love that comparison. You're right, to eliminate a top-fitting menu bar would be to remove the wheel from the tire, thus majorly hindering usability except in the case of a completely redesigned GUI. I doubt we're going to see anything that radical in Leopard. I've voiced my dear want for a quantum shift in GUI design, I just don't think we'll get it next spring.
 
I like the menu bar, it makes sense. It does cause some switchers confusion at first, although it is simple enough to learn within minutes.

I don't think Apple will be changing it anytime soon, and hopefully never!!
 
Thanks everybody for your thoughts on this UI topic. I myself love interface design which is one MAJOR reason why I was drawn to the Mac in the first place.

I also believe that the menu bar across the top has become iconic with the Mac and that somehow, if it were to go away, the Mac just wouldn't be the same. Now that isn't to say that Apple couldn't design something even more revolutionary, but why change something that is already extremely effecient!

BTW, is there any truth that the first beta/developer release of Mac OS X (1.0) didn't have the menu bar? I thought I heard that was true but people were so outraged that Apple put it back before it went Gold Master.

Now let me ask, do you think there's anything that Apple could do to improve the menu bar -- to make it more effecient, more customizable, more intelligent, etc.? I know there are several apps out there that add options, custom menus, better clocks, app switchers, and all kinds of stuff to the menu bar, but if you had to pick just one thing that Apple could improve within the exsiting menu bar, what would it be?

Joe
 
Joe Kopetz said:
BTW, is there any truth that the first beta/developer release of Mac OS X (1.0) didn't have the menu bar? I thought I heard that was true but people were so outraged that Apple put it back before it went Gold Master.
Click to expand...
No, I don't think so. However, it's true that there was no Apple menu in the public beta. There was a blue Apple smack dab in the middle of the menu bar, but it was strictly decorational.

Now let me ask, do you think there's anything that Apple could do to improve the menu bar -- to make it more effecient, more customizable, more intelligent, etc.? I know there are several apps out there that add options, custom menus, better clocks, app switchers, and all kinds of stuff to the menu bar, but if you had to pick just one thing that Apple could improve within the exsiting menu bar, what would it be?
Click to expand...
Bruce Tognazzini, one of the designers of the original Macintosh, has some interesting things to say about menus on his web site, AskTog. The one that pops to my mind immediately is #4 on his list of 10 Most Wanted Design Bugs.

In short, the problem is that when a menu item is disabled, there is nothing to tell the user WHY. Apple could easily create some hooks for developers to create tooltips or something of that sort that would appear over menu items and explain what they do and why they're currently disabled.

I rarely find this to be a problem, but in more complex apps, sometimes it's just not clear.


I would also like an easier way to customize shortcuts. Apple provides the interface in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane, but it's time-consuming to configure. I want to be able to change it right from the menu. Why not? The capability is already there, Apple just needs to make a better interface for it.
 
Mikuro said:
I would also like an easier way to customize shortcuts. Apple provides the interface in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane, but it's time-consuming to configure. I want to be able to change it right from the menu. Why not? The capability is already there, Apple just needs to make a better interface for it.
Click to expand...
I love that idea! Maybe a modifier key combo to trigger it? That would be awesome!
 
I love that menu bar across the top. I miss it when I'm using windows at work. I even moved my windows taskbar and start menu to the top but It's not the same.
 
The shared menu bar was created in 1983 when Mac (and Lisa) screens were very small. This was a tremendous real estate advantage over the menu that were embedded in the data windows. I am not sure that this is so much of an advantage today on 30" screens (for the fortunates who can afford it).

Today's best menu is the contextual pop-up menu, which requires a 3 buttons mouse, because it is always available without moving the mouse.

The other advantage of the shared menu is that it is always visible, making the navigation easier for beginners, but in this respect the Multifinder pull-down menu to switch between applications was a great feature that disappeared (and is not completely replaced by the more efficient but less visible -tab).
 
screen real estate was not the only reason for the shared menu bar, though. The main advantage is that users have less trouble hitting the right spot, because it's at the top edge of the screen. If the menu bar is 20 or more pixels _below_ the top, missing it is much easier.
 
Right. The important thing about the menu bar is that it only takes 20 pixels of vertical space, but its effective size is infinite when related to physical (mouse/hand) space, since the cursor is anchored to the edge of the screen. One little flick of the mouse towards the top, and I KNOW I'm going to hit the menu bar, because I can't possibly overshoot it.

It takes a lot less time to hit edge-anchored objects than floating ones. This is all in accordance with Fitt's Law, which states that the time to access an object is a function of the size of and distance to that object. In other words, if something is enormous or very close, it'll be easier to hit. Since anchored virtual objects are deceptively large when related to real-world space, they're much easier to access than floating objects, whose 'real' size is directly proportional to their 'virtual' (on-screen) size.

Today's best menu is the contextual pop-up menu, which requires a 3 buttons mouse, because it is always available without moving the mouse.
Click to expand...
It's true that your current position is always the easiest to access, but contextual menus relate to whatever happens to be under the mouse, so if the mouse is outside the area of interest, then you'll need to move it.

I disagree that contextual menus are the best choice today. I think contextual menus are very inefficient for general-purpose use, for a few reasons:

1. They're not always in the same place. You need to click on a particular object to get relevant options, and that object could be anywhere, and of any size.

2. Since you need to click on a particular object to see relevant options, there's no way to know all the options that are available without control-clicking on every object onscreen. On the other hand, the menu bar generally shows all options that it will ever show, and merely grays-out the ones that don't currently apply.

3. There are no visual cues to tell you which objects have contextual menu items.

4. Contextual menus can't hold as many items as the menu bar without becoming cumbersome. You can always use sub-menus, but then you're throwing efficiency right out the window.


That said, a lot of these problems could be fixed if any company cared to. But Apple hasn't done it, and we all know that means it's not going to be done. ;) I think CMs have a lot more room for improvement than the menu bar, actually.


I like the way OS 8/9 treated contextual menus: as a shortcut. Unfortunately, OS X is heading in the direction of Windows, making some options only accessible through contextual menus. Bummer.
 
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