[Openmcl-devel] Commands on the Menu [Re: Contrib: list-definitions.lisp]

[Terje Norderhaug]

On Aug 17, 2009, at 3:58 PM, Rainer Joswig wrote:
> Generally I would say that the MCL UI had a mistake, that is easily  
> repeatable with CCL: some commands were not easily discoverable.  
> They were only available via obscure keyboard commands or mouse  
> gestures. I would like to see the CCL UI to be more discoverable -  
> that means that ANY useful user interface command has an entry in  
> the menubar, somewhere. The expert can use the short cuts, once he/ 
> she has found the functionality - but for the newbie or the casual  
> user, there should be an entry in the menubar's menus.

I'll take the MCL UI as a starting point for discussing future  
improvements in CL IDEs.

The MCL UI could indeed benefit from having menu entries for the most  
useful interface commands. Some very essential commands are not  
prominently listed in the MCL menu, including commands like these on  
the current symbols or sexp:

List Callers (Ctrl-c)
Show Definition/Source (Opt-. or Ctrl-Opt-click)
Inspect (Help key)
Show Documentation (Ctrl-x-Ctrl-d)

However, these and other commands are in fact discoverable from the  
Listener- and Fred Commands dialogs of the Tools menu. The problem is  
that these dialogs list a lot of available commands - no less than  
182 for the Fred editor. Adding more than a few to the menus would  
quickly be counterproductive.

One issue with having so many commands listed is that it complicates  
re-discovering useful commands. A remedy could be having a way to  
flag the most useful commands, allowing users to customize which  
commands should be prominently listed on the menus for later reference.

-- Terje Norderhaug