Using Undo after Deleting All Records (was: Easy to delete all Records and lose the saved records!)

Here is my totally unsolicited review of the current Panorama X menus and how I might handle them to conform to the current Apple menu configurations. These are mostly minor tweaks except for the View menu which I might handle differently than how it is presently handled. If you have many forms and many, many procedures it might be better to have them displayed in sub-menus that only pops up when Forms or Procedures are selected rather than having all forms and procedures automatically displaying every time the View menu is opened. I also noted that Apple apps do not use indented menu items in the apps I checked so I “unindented” the ones currently configured that way. I also changed a few items to use the Option key scheme as well.

This is only submitted for discussion purposes. I’m not even sure myself if I prefer all of the changes I show.

If the image above is too small you can get the full image at http://www.unseensoft.com/Panoram_X_Menus.png.

Wow, you put a lot of work into that Gary. I think you probably actually set up custom menus and then took screen shots?

In the very early days (I think Panorama II) the View menu was hierarchical like you have proposed. It wasn’t very popular because of the contortions you had to go thru to to get to a form or procedure, so I changed it to the current setup in Panorama 3. Or maybe the change was between 1.5 and 2, so long ago.

I used screen shots for the existing drop down menus and then did some selective clone editing to produce the new menus. Took about an hour or hour and a half to put together in Autodesk Graphic. Just wanted to flesh out a few thoughts I had on the subject to see if anyone else would have any input.

Gary, I love your enthusiasm. Any chance we can more a larger, zoomed in view of your work? Everything I tried was either small or out of focus (when I zoomed the .png in Chrome).

I am going to agree on your hierarchical menus for the View as it is way too easy to have that menu unwieldy as it is. A user knows going whether they want a form or procedure, and that can filter the length tremendously.

Robert Ameeti

Alright. Studied and stared at it a bit more. Figured out the fuzzy stuff.

I agree with essentially everything you’ve offered. And to your point of the Option Key, it is almost a matter where the more a program uses this feature, the more Apple-like they are. It is the new vogue.

Robert Ameeti

I think the forum restricts the displayed image size. That is why I offered a link to the actual .png file at http://www.unseensoft.com/Panoram_X_Menus.png. The original .png is 792 x 612 while the one in the forum is reduced to 647 x 500.

Ok, I just uploaded a much better version of the file now at 1650 x 1275 at the above location.

Personally I like the use of the Option key for: Close All, Save As (which I am missing very much), and clearly Delete All Records.

A.

These two options are already available when you press the Option key, so you can stop missing them immediately!! Apple added the option key for Save As in 10.8, I think – so I can’t take any credit. You’ll see it in any app that is using Apple’s standard code, for example in Keynote and Pages. Close All is also part of Apple’s standard code.

Matt Neuburg wrote an excellent (if very detailed) article in TidBITs about topic of changes to the File menu back in 2012.

In searching for this, I found a newer article by Adam Engst titled “Put Save As Back on the File Menu”, which you may find interesting.

Both of these articles highlight that these aren’t Panorama specific issues – but they are coming up now because Panorama X now conforms to modern Apple standards, while Panorama 6 never did.


And you’re kind of making my point that if a feature is only available when the Option key is held down, it’s practically invisible and most users will never know about it.


By the way, this thread has really jumped the shark :fish:

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Yes, great, there are there!, then I am sure we will all become accustomed to the fact that there is more behind the Option key than opening the Library.

This strengthens the case of my colleagues Gary and RAmeeti. If a quite often needed action like Save As requires the Option key, then I see no reason why a very seldom used (and fairly confusing and possibly dangerous) action like Delete All Records should stay on the forefront menu items…

But in the end you decide what you think will be the best, and agree to close this thread there.