Visually distinct menu choices

Hi all,

In a previous email I discussed visually distinct menu choices. What I
mean is that, with the most fleeting possible glance, a person of any
reasonable visual accuity knows whether a menu choice is:

1) A command
2) A submenu without a default
3) A submenu with a default

Here's how I did it in my UMENU CLI text menuing software at
http://troubleshooters.com/projects/umenu2/

===========================================================


       UMENU2 menu system (version 1.9.4), (C) 2016 by Steve Litt
NO WARRANTY! Licensed under the GNU GPL Version 3. See the COPYING file.

*****  Accounting Menu  *****          [sa]

...  A: tAx
...  B: Book related accounting
     E: business Expenses
     F: Fulfill Book Orders
     G: check for Gnumeric
...  H: Health insurance
  ^  Q: Quit
Your choice please==>
===========================================================

In the preceding, command choices have no prefix, submenu choices are
prefixed by elipses, and "Return to calling menu" choices are prefixed
by a carat. If UMENU2 had the concept of default actions on submenu
choices, I'd probably prefix ones with default actions with either 1 or
3 plus signs. The point is, with the most fleeting possible glance, the
user can tell which choices will perform what types of actions.

Obviously, visual distinctiveness will take on a very different form
with ctwm's GUI menus than with UMENU's text menus, but this example
shows the level of visual distinctiveness I think would be appropriate.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt
September 2017 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical
Troubleshooting Brand new, second edition
http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr