The Design of an Interface to a Programming System and MENUNIX: A Menu-Based Interface to UNIX (User Manual)

摘要

This report consists of two papers on MENUNIX, an experimental interface to the programs and files on the UNIX operating system. In the first paper, I discuss how the decisions about the design of MENUNIX were made: based on my intuitions and user comments, but also on psychological theory and data whenever available. MENUNIX presents both the programs and files of UNIX in two menus from which users can make selections with single keypresses. The FILE menu presents the UNIX file hierarchy that allows users to organize files into directories by subject (e.g. writing and programming). The PROGRAM menu presents UNIX programs in a hierarchy organized into workbenches according to the tasks for which they are used (e.g. writing and programming) much as files can be organized in directories. Special facilities are provided for: finding out about useful commands; using variables to set options, to save commands, and to avoid typing long strings; and for editing strings (including recent commands). The second paper is a tutorial user manual for MENUNIX, in which the features of the program are more fully explained. (Author)