Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!stanford.edu!leland.Stanford.EDU!elaine39.Stanford.EDU!draphsor
From: draphsor@elaine39.Stanford.EDU (Matt Rollefson)
Subject: Re: Standards for Balloon Help?
Message-ID: <draphsor.676923391@elaine39.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News)
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
References: <1CE00001.h2b15n@avalon.caladan.wa.com>
Date: 14 Jun 91 18:16:31 GMT
Lines: 26

stui@avalon.caladan.wa.com (Stuart Burden) writes:

>In article <14057@goofy.Apple.COM>, carr@apple.com (Randy Carr) writes:
>  | Graying out the Show Balloons menu item just isn't appropriate.

>Why..?  Once you've seen it, you've seen it...!  An obvious user interface
>flaw is the "Help" key on the Extended Keyboards.. doesn't turn on
>or off balloon help.. nor does Command-Help.. what the world really
>needs is a keyboard shortcut to turn the item on or off, and if that
>be the case, why not trash the icon?  Why not a key to turn on or
>off the display of the menu item?

Check out the cdev helium on mac.archive.umich.edu. (in the
/mac/system.extensions/cdev directory). It does exactly this - you hold
down the option and command keys while pointing to something, and after
a certain amount of time (about a second, I'd say) the balloon help for
the item you're pointing to pops up. Very nice... And, it's free! Just
picked it up yesterday, so I don't know if it'll have any problems, but
thus far no crashes or anything. Looks like a well-written little
utility.

>stui@avalon.uucp
>stui@avalon.caladan.wa.com

--
Draphsor vo'drun-Aelf                   draphsor@leland.stanford.edu
