Inventions on Menu and Toolbar Coordination

摘要

Both toolbar and dropdown menu are used popularly in a graphical userinterface with a similar objective of providing easy access to the internalfunctions. Often the same functions are provided through both menu and toolbar. Both toolbar and dropdown menu have their own advantages and disadvantages. Amenu can provide more options occupying less real estate, while toolbar canprovide a single click access without navigating through trees and branches. As a menu and toolbar system shares many common objectives, it is oftenuseful maintain some relationship to coordinate between both the elements of aGUI system. The relationships can be easy as both of them often share the sameinternal function. For example, the print option in a menu will (most likely)call the same function as the print button on the toolbar. This article discusses the similarities and differences between a dropdownmenu and toolbar. Five inventions trying to focus on both menu and toolbar areillustrated in the article.