Legacy Maemo 5 Documentation/Human Interface Guidelines/View Menu

=View Menu= The View Menu does not have a traditional menu bar like desktop application menus have. The View Menu is activated when the user presses the application's title area.

The View Menu can hold up to ten menu items and can be divided into two columns -- or one column when in portrait orientation. The View Menu can also include filters. As with selectable items within window views, menu items are in fact buttons, and there are no sub menus.



Figure 8: A view menu

Menu items that perform similar actions (e.g., "Previous" and "Next") should be placed side by side within a View Menu. Also, the most important menu items should be placed on the top of the view.

Actions that are available from other locations within the application (either in the onscreen interface or via a hardware key) should not be repeated in a menu view.

The View Menu should will differ depending on the current view in the application. For example, if a user is viewing the "Inbox" sub view of an email application, he should access the view menu of the "Inbox" and not the view menu of the root view.

What if more menus are needed?
Following the principles stated in section 1.8, "Hildonizing an Interface," it is possible to keep the interface simple yet functional.

If there are actions that belong in the sub menu of a desktop application, consider creating a new sub view that will contain the commands that won't fit in the View Menu. Think of a text application that should have a "Format" menu with several sub menus: "Comment Lines," "Remove Lines," "Duplicate Lines," etc. While these sub menus are not supported by a Hildon View Menu, a new sub view can be created that will hold buttons to perform the actions intended to be sub menus of the "Format" menu item. The Format sub view will appears when the "Format" menu item is pressed.

Remember, try to keep the number of menu items low -- add only the most useful items. The less menu items, the better. This is important not only because there are a limited number of items allowed within Hildon, but also because it is good practice to limit the amount of menu items a user is forced to navigate through in order to achieve a particular action. Again, if an action can be already performed by some other widget within the application's interface, do not include a menu item for it.

Filters
Along with typical menu items, filters can also be used within a View Menu. Filters are toggle buttons that can be used for presentation/sorting purposes. For example, sorting a list of contacts alphabetically, or changing the size of icons in a list.

As a general rule, these actions shouldn't change the amount of data displayed, just how that data is displayed.

Filters should always be presented in groups. Because of this, there should always be at least two menu filters (e.g., a menu filter that will sort a list of email messages alphabetically and one that will sort them by date -- not just one filter for alphabetical sorting).

Menu Keyboard Shortcuts
Sometimes it makes sense to add keyboard shortcuts to some actions that can also be performed via the View Menu.

If the shortcut will perform a common action like creating something new, formatting the text as bold, or undoing a previous action, take care in utilizing common shortcuts that are generally used in other applications. For example, the previous mentioned actions would be Ctrl+n, Ctrl+b, and Ctrl+z, respectively.

Unavailable Menu Items
Even though it is a common and useful practice to make certain menu items unavailable (i.e., "dimmed") in desktop applications when their actions are not available, Hildon takes a different approach: the menu items should not be visible at all. Although dimmed menu items suggest actions that are unavailable, they can cramp menu space on the small screen and make interaction with available menu items more confusing.



Figure 9: An incorrect view menu