Building Cocoa Applications: A Step by Step Guide

Menu Guidelines and Keyboard Equivalents

Developers should follow Aqua’s menu guidelines carefully so users of their applications can learn and work faster. Common menu structure and commands are crucial to better user productivity within a GUI. In this section, we discuss most of the standard Mac OS X menus and associated keyboard equivalent guidelines. For further details, see the “Introduction to the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines” at Apple’s developer web site or in the /Developer folder (references are provided at the end of this chapter).

A keyboard equivalent is a way of manipulating a graphical object (usually a menu) using the keyboard rather than the mouse. To use a keyboard equivalent, type a single key (perhaps modified by the Shift key) while pressing one of the Command keys near the bottom of the Apple keyboard (depending on your Mac, you may have only one Command key on your keyboard). Experienced users use keyboard equivalents because they are faster than manipulating the mouse. Using the mouse is a more natural way to manipulate graphical objects, but it’s often slower and less convenient, either because the user’s hands are already on the keyboard or because mouse (cursor) movements across a screen are time-consuming and clumsy.

A keyboard equivalent usually substitutes for a click on a menu command from the menu bar, but it may also substitute for a pop-up menu command. Pop-up menu key equivalents should be digits (e.g., Command-2 activates the second item down ...