Graeme,
In the early '80s when I first used the Apple Mac with the WIMP
environment, the format of the menus was consistently retained across
different applications. The 'File' menu was less to do with the
manipulation of files and more to do with opening files, starting a new
file, printing out the file, document properties, etc. It's natural that
exiting the program was also accomplished through the 'File' menu.
Under the 'Edit' menu 'cutting' and 'pasting' is terminology from the
printing industry.
In any case, I feel it's a good idea to retain this kind of consistency
across applications and, indeed, across Operating Systems.
Dave
Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
Hi,
Why is it that just about every GUI application has a File menu option
even though the application doesn't work with files?
I was busy doing translations in our latest application when it
occurred to me. We have a screen that shows a listing of students. On
that screen I have a File, Edit and Help menu. The later two makes
sense, but the File menu doesn't, though it seems to be general
practice to place that menu option there!
The menu options under File are Export, Print and Close - again,
nothing to do with files! I'm Exporting a grid (ok to a file), Print
to a printer and Close the window.
:-) How weird! Wouldn't File maybe be better named as Window or
Screen. Who decided 'File' must appear in 99% of all application
menus?
Just a thought. ;-)
At least the KDE GUI guidelines mention that you can replace File with
something more appropriate, but who does! I randomly opened a few
applications on my computer and most of them have a file menu, even
though none of them where working with files. File is appropriate for
a text editor yes, but not for things like Terminal (command prompt
app under Gnome) or Character Map under Gnome.
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/kde-style.html#menus
--
Dave Coventry
Tel (home): +27(0)31 3092301
Tel (office): +27(0)31 2058448
Cell: +27(0)82 3685983
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