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B&S 2.2.1 : Short cut keys & Menu in GUI

 
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Hi Folks,

I need suggestion here since whatever the threads i have been reading so far folks seem to have implemented the short cut keys & menu in their GUIs.

My personal opinion about this is that if i have a GUI which can be navigated using keyboard & mouse to perform all the required operations then we don't need short cut keys & menu for this application.

In my GUI i have Book / Search / Cancel button also the user can navigate the gui using ( CTRL+Tab ) or mouse. Plus user can use either ENTER or mouse click to select the button.

Don't know if there is anything i'm missing here which i'm not adhering to then it would be worth knowing.

Don't know if not having short cut keys & menu would affect the MARKS.

Any comments on above & your suggestion would certainly help.

Regards,
Shrenik
 
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Hi Shrenik,

I think you might lose points for not implementing the menu and shortcut keys. A lot of people don't get full credit for their GUIs and there is some feeling that this sort of thing may be behind it. Try to do a search on 'Gui' and see what you find. I have also heard that using a null layout can cause point loss, too. I did this but have not gotten my score yet, so I can't confirm it My menu only has File with Exit under it and Help with an 'About' popup under it. I had to go back and add mnemonics to parts of my GUI before submitting because I had been a bit inconsistent about it. Again, once you get one setup, it shouldn't take too long, it's only a couple lines of code.
 
Shrenik Sakriya
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Thanks Ann for your quick reply.

After posting this topic i read through certain threads about this & from a read of it looks the menu is necessary since some folks have recieved 0 marks for not implementing it. So, certainly i would implement the Menu but regarding mnemonic is it necessary if you have full navigation support using either keyboard or mouse. There is a default support using "CTRL+TAB".

Also is Menu necessary in all the 4 GUIs ...

1. Server
2. Client
3. Standalone
4. Booking system
 
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Hi Shrenik,

My menu just was an item File with a menu-item Quit. That's it.

Although my gui was navigatable through keyboard and mouse I defined mnemonics wherever it was possible: so every button, every menu-item had a short-cut key. Using this mnemonics and a menu bar will give the user a familiar feeling, because he (or she) is used to that from all the windows applications.

Kind regards,
Roel

 
Roel De Nijs
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Hi Shrenik,

My application has just 2 real components: server window (with a menu-bar too) and main application window (can be started in network or standalone mode, has also a menu-bar). But if i show a dialog there is of course no menu-bar (because if you got a windows dialog there is also no menu-bar)

Kind regards,
Roel
 
Anne Crace
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Again, mine is similar to Roel's. I have a menu only on main Gui (the one described above) and the Server. That one only has File/Exit. My standalone and network client use Dialogs, so no menu.
 
Shrenik Sakriya
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Thanks folks for your reply. It was indeed very helpful & gives me some more work to do which i was trying to avoid. I've started exploring into mnemonics etc so hopefully i'll get hold of the concept soon.

 
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