Control Menus: Execution and Control in a Single Interactor

1
Control MenusExecution and Control in a Single
Interactor

• Stuart Pook
• Eric Lecolinet
• Guy Vaysseix
• Emmanuel Barillot
• École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications
  (ENST/INFRES), France
• Infobiogen, France
• Généthon, France

2
The Problem

• Choose and control continuous operations
• Example Acrobat Reader
• three ways to zoom
• dialog box, option menu, mouse button
• three ways to pan
• dialog box, scroll bar, mouse button
• Various problems
• many ways and modes
• multiple focus switches
• non contextual
• screen space
• repeated uses

3
Control Menu

• We propose a new type of pop-up menu that is
  circular and visually similar to marking menu.
• A control menu is shown here.
• As this menu is a pop-up it is contextual. The
  mouse click used to pop-up the menu indicates
  where the action chosen by the menu is to be
  applied.
• The gesture used to pop-up the menu continues so
  as to select an operation from the menu and to
  then control this operation.

• New type of pop-up menu
• visually similar to a marking menu
• Combines choice and control
• single continuous reversible action
• no focus switches
• immediate feedback

4
Uses in Zoomable User Interfaces

• this short video shows the mouse movements used
  to select the zoom operation from the menu and to
  zoom the image.
• The mouse logo next to the cursor shows when the
  mouse button was pressed. I was not able to
  capture the change in cursor at the start and end
  of the zoom operation.

• Lots of mouse driven operations
• One control menu sufficient for all
• Each controlled by a single gesture
• All operations unified

5
Control vs. Marking Menus

• Both marking and control menus have novice and
  expert gestures. We saw the novices gesture on
  the video. The gesture of an expert is the same
  as that of a novice except without the third of a
  second pause that causes the menu to be shown. A
  user that knows the location of a menu item
  doesnt have to wait to see menu. If she is
  unsure a short pause at the beginning of the
  operation will cause the menu to be drawn.
• Control menus differ from marking menus in that
  with a marking menu it is the form not the scale
  of the users gesture that is important. With a
  control menu it is the distance that is
  important.
• A control menu incorporates the control of an
  action into the gesture used to select it. This
  control is proportional to the users mouse
  movements and can be in two different directions.
• A control menu can thus replace up to two scroll
  bars for each menu item.

• Control and marking menus
• novices see the menu
• experts dont
• Control menu
• distance rather than the form of the gesture
• (proportional) control
• bidirectional interactor
• replaces menu and two scroll bars

6
Panning and expert use

• i3
• The second (and last) video will show a control
  menu used to pan an application and the use of
  the control menu by someone who knows the
  location of the difference menu items.

7
Status and Future Directions

• We have used a control menu to control a Zoomable
  User Interface. The user interface part of this
  program is in Java and can be tested over the
  Web.
• This Zoomable User Interface is a browser for a
  biological database.
• We are currently working on adapting our control
  menu for use in different types of applications.
  Word processor are one example that we are
  developing.

• Zomit and HuGeMap
• in Java (http//www.infobiogen.fr/services/zomit)
• browse biological database
• Other applications
• word processor