Menu interaction

The user selects a menu or menu item from a palette by dragging to select it. At the main palette, when the user drags to select a menu item, a submenu appears on the right. The user can drag across and downward through the menu to choose an item.

Sticky menus

Tear-off menus

Scrolling menus

A scrolling menu contains more items than are visible onscreen. For ease of use, all the items on a menu should usually be visible. In rare cases, however, a scrolling menu is necessary--for example, if a menu can be customized and the user can add many items to it.

When a menu is too long to fit onscreen, a downward triangle appears at the bottom of the menu to indicate that more items are available. The user scrolls the menu by dragging down through the menu. When the user drags past the last visible item, the menu starts to scroll up. An upward triangle appears at the top of the menu to indicate that items have scrolled off the top. When the last item at the bottom of the menu is visible, the downward triangle disappears.

When the user drags up toward the top of the menu, the menu items scroll down and the downward triangle reappears. If the user leaves the menu and later returns to it, it appears in its original position with the hidden items and downward triangle at the bottom.