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Depending on your point of view, menus are a blessing or a curse. If
you're a user they're generally pretty helpful; if you're a programmer
they are a pain.
This is because menus often contain items which have global
effects — that is, effects which stretch across an entire program or
even the entire computer system — even when you don't want them to. For
example, take the COPY and PASTE options found in most EDIT menus.
There are plenty of times when, as both a
programmer and a user, you might see the utility of having such
commands available.
But how do you, as a programmer, feel about their
usefulness when you contemplate writing a program that switches between
graphics and text screens? How would you even begin to go about
designing a program wherein COPY and PASTE are available sometimes, but
not other times — or, worse still, available all the time, but in
different contexts and referring to different things? (How can your
program know that COPY text is not the same thing as COPY picture, and
vice-versa, for instance? And, if it is, where PASTE works and where it
does not?)
(Sometimes, though, menus don't have global enough effects! How and why this can happen will, naturally, be covered later.)
The above is by way of letting you know that menus are tricky little
heifers to have on your ranch. If you don't keep them performing well
under control and well in your sight, they're likely to hop onto your
back and make your life a lot harder than it needs to be.
The KISS Principle (politely, Keep It Simple,
Silly) applies here. When contemplating menus, make sure that what you
put atop the screen is stuff that's both necessary and relatively
simple to control. Otherwise you're headed for headache.
One might ask, then: Why put a menu bar onscreen in the first place? The best answer is this:
In many — virtually all — GUI programs, menu bars of some kind or other
are considered standard elements of interface design. Even in many
games, which arguably might not need a menu bar (or want one), you will
still see a menu bar there. This is such a common and pervasive element
of interface design that a user who does not see a menu load with a
program is likely to assume that something is wrong. (Trust me on this
one.)
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A brief introduction to Director