Re: menu loop (patch)

[Robert Millan]

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:22:27PM +0200, Carles Pina i Estany wrote:
> 
> Hello,

Carles!  Que n'és de petit el món ;-)

> I'm a Grub user (thanks for your nice work!) and I always wanted to have
> a menu that "loops". Like, if you press down and you are in the last
> option it goes to the first one, and if you press up but you are int he
> first option goes to the last.
> 
> Attached comes a patch against revision 1718.
> 
> Of course, feel free to comment anything about it. I'm open to change,
> fix, etc.
> 
> I also don't know if this functionality is not in Grub because you
> thought that was better to not have this functionality. 
> 
> I've copied/change a few lines (after the patch, lines 425-428 are the
> same than lines 347-350). I don't think that it's needed to refactor but
> if you think so I can do it.

I'm not sure if this is intentional.  Size is not important in this part of
the code, but in other UI menus (e.g. Iceweasel or GNOME) I notice this is
not done.  It could also be a nuissance for users who want to go rapidly to
the top or bottom (sure, they can use PgUp/PgDn, but then aren't we making
the behaviour of those keys inconsistent with arrows?).

Also, if you (or anyone) can point to a "usability best practices" reference
saying this has been carefuly analized and one of the options was found to be
better, I think this would help us make a decision.

What does everyone else think?

Colin, does this affect your graphical menu work in some way?  I suppose the
same situation applies the same way to the upcoming new menu.  Or perhaps
this can be made more flexible and be toggled by some CSS magic?

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What good is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)