Types of Menu

4.2.1. Drop-down Menus

Figure 4-2 A typical drop-down menu

A drop-down menu appears when the user clicks on its title in a menubar, or focuses the title and presses Return.

Guidelines
  • Only place items on a menu that relate to that menu's title.
  • Organize menu items in the standard order— see Section 4.4 ― Standard Menus. For application-specific items where there is no standard order, arrange in numerical or other logical order (for example, 50%, 100%, 200%), task order (for example, Compile followed by Debug) or by expected frequency of use.
  • Limit top-level menus to a maximum of about 15 items. If you have any more items than this, consider moving a functionally-related subset of the items into a submenu or a new top-level menu.
  • Do not add or remove individual menu items while the application is running, make them insensitive instead. Entire menus may be added or removed from the menubar at runtime, however, for example in component-based applications.
  • Immediately update menu items that are edited directly or indirectly by the user, such as those on the Open Recent submenu and the Bookmarks menu.

4.2.2. Submenus

Figure 4-3 A drop-down menu with a submenu

A submenu appears when the user clicks its title, which is indicated by a small arrow symbol beside its label. You can save space on long menus by grouping related commands onto a single submenu.

Guidelines
  • Use submenus sparingly, as they are physically difficult to navigate and make it harder to find and reach the items they contain.
  • Do not create submenus with fewer than three items, unless the items are added dynamically (for example the File ▸ New Tab submenu in gnome-terminal).
  • Do not nest submenus within submenus. More than two levels of hierarchy are difficult to memorize and navigate.

4.2.3. Popup Menus

Figure 4-4 A popup menu for a mail folder

Popup menus provide shortcuts to those menu items that are applicable only to the currently selected object. As such, they are sometimes known as "context menus" or "shortcut menus". A popup menu is shown when the user right-clicks on an object, or selects the object and presses Shift+F10.

Be aware that popup menus are used primarily by intermediate and advanced users. Even some users who have used graphical desktops for many years do not know about popup menus until somebody shows them.

Guidelines

  • Provide a popup menu for every object, selectable part, and text input target such as entry fields.

  • Provide an access key for each item. However, to enhance their spatial efficiency and readability, do not show keyboard shortcuts in popup menus.

  • Since the user may not be aware of their presence, do not provide functions that are only accessible from popup menus unless you are confident that your target users will know how to use popup menus.

  • Order items on a popup menu as follows:

    • the double-click action for object, when it exists
    • other commands and settings in expected frequency-of-use order
    • transfer commands such as Cut, Copy, and Paste
    • Input Methods, where applicable. Input Methods is provided by GTK+ for supporting alternatives to the keyboard for input (such as used for Japanese, Chinese, and some accessibility technologies).

  • Popup menus need to be as simple as possible to maximize their efficiency. Do not place more than about ten items on a popup menu, and do avoid submenus.

The Menubar Designing a Menu

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