Heretical Thoughts about the Menu system
If this is a touchy topic (because it is at the heart of the OpenVPM screen design), please forgive me for bringing it up.
Our current menu system differs from the semi-standard ones that use a drop-down approach. Ours has the advantage that you can switch between workspaces without having to reselect the sub-space, and that in any workspace it is immediately obvious what sub-spaces are available. However, it does lead to the following disadvantages:
- we use up left panel real estate that is valuble
- selecting a workspace for the first time immediately selects the top subspace (eg clicking Reporting forces the Till Balance screen to run, even if you actually want Reports)
- no keyboard shortcuts are available to select sub-spaces
- we cannot easily extend to a 3rd (and deeper) menu level
Note that if we did switch to a drop-down system, we could retain the 'workspace switch' facility by setting things so that clicking the top menu item does the workspace switch and hovering causes the drop-down to let you select the sub-items.
Comments/feedback welcome.
Regards, Tim G
Re: Heretical Thoughts about the Menu system
In the early versions of the echo2 the menu support was patchy with no support for shortcuts; this more or less decided the current layout approach.
I suspect shortcuts aren't supported still, so this would require development.
Re: Heretical Thoughts about the Menu system
Tim - I had a dig around and agree that echo (both 2 & 3) appear to have poor menu support (its part of the extras package). If I ever get time to play, this would be a nice project to play with - but I don't have the currently have the time. Foregive me for raising the subject.
Regards, Tim G