Considering the fact that Macs have just started shipping with multiple button mice (and laptops still do not offer multi-button clicking), support for contextual menus is astoundingly good. There are things like a system-wide contextual menu that is used for text areas that includes such functions as copying and spell check. The problem is that in their own applications Apple has implemented contextual menus to varying degrees from virtually no implementation to completely ubiquitous integration.
How has Apple Done?Take a look at the contextual menu at the top of the page. That's what every contextual menu of a text area should look like. Unfortunately, the world isn't perfect. Some Apps do have it, others don't. The following are applications that fail to implement the said contextual menu (as far as I could find):
- Address Book
- Calculator
- Finder
- iCal
- iDVD
- iTunes
While clearly not the majority of programs, some of the most important programs in the entire OS (Finder and iTunes) have failed to implement these. One thing that greatly aids the discoverability of key combinations is the fact that menus in the user interface always have the associated combination next to the item. However, for no apparent reason, the same cannot be said about items in contextual menus. While many of the same items appear in contextual menus as are in menubar menus, none of those items with combinations have the combo next to them. If they were present, the combinations discoverability would greatly be aided.
The Easy Way Out Unfortunately for the user, in some applications, Apple has taken the easy way out: they include this text contextual menu... but precious little else. A perfect example of this is GarageBand. It is true that text has the said contextual menu, but not a single other element in GarageBand has a contextual menu. Not one! Don't for a moment think that's because there would be nothing to put there, because that's false. At the very least they could have put the appropriate elements of the Track Menu into a contextual menu when you click on the tracks.
There are numerous other areas where contextual menus could be used, but aren't. One example is they could have an "Add Playlist" and "Add Smart Playlist" contextual menu when you click a blank area in the iTunes source list. Likewise, there are many problems with the Finder and Spotlight (I'll get to the Finder's issues on it's own page). There are plenty of basic areas in the user interface that would benefit from contextual menus. Take the titlebar, for example. It would be good if right clicking on the titlebar revealed the window options (such as minimise or zoom and maximise). This isn't a big deal, but why should there be any area that doesn't use contextual menus? Lastly, one of the more annoying lacks is in dashboard. While there are contextual menus for those widgets that use real textareas, those that don't specifically use text areas or input fields lack them. While mildly annoying for calculator, it's quite bad in stickies. I need that spell check! I applaud Apple for including contextual menus at all, but for such a high-quality software company they could certainly do better.
Spotlight as an Example
Once upon a time there was the hope that Spotlight has the potential to be a replacement for the Finder. Well, this potential will never be realised if you can't perform any operations on the files. I mean just look at the contextual menu for things in Spotlight. It's horribly weak compared to the Finder. Please, Apple, make it easier for me to get rid of the Finder. This is a perfect example of weak a contextual menu.
Proxy Icons and the Like
This issue is tied in with the key combo issues I have with Mac OS X: that there is so much hidden functionality. One example of this hidden functionality is that when you command-click a icon that is in the titlebar, be that in the Finder or when it is acting as a proxy icon, it will reveal a drop-down menu of the folder hierarchy above that file. This is a great idea, and allows for someone to quickly go to the enclosing folder. I have no idea how I discovered this feature (I most likely read it on some messageboard somewhere), and it cannot go under the class of "easily discoverable". Of all 4 keys to hold down, why the command key? I offer a simple solution, give the query icon the exact same functionality that is already given to dock-based folders: right-click discoverability. The right-click is the second easiest thing to do when interacting with the computer (second only to the left click, it is even easier than double-clicking), and I often look into contextual menus for additional functionality. It just makes more sense for proxy icons to have a path menu based on right-clicking, instead of the illogical command-clicking.
I believe that there are certainly other places where a contextual menu should supplant hidden functionality like command-clicking. Frankly I wouldn't be disappointed at all if such hidden stuff was got rid of and left in contextual menus.
One completely off topic question regarding proxy icons: why is it that the icon you see when you drag the proxy icon doesn't look like the icon that you see when you drag the item in the Finder? It's kinda silly for it not to have its name and to be bigger than it normally would be.
What about Mail?You may have noticed that many non-native apps do not have correct styling for their contextual menus. The most blatant example of this is Firefox, but there are other apps that exhibit this problem. But what really surprised me was when I got this classically mis-styled menu in Mail. Mail is (theoretically) the most advanced UI in the OS (supposedly Mail and iTunes are harbingers of what's to come), and they completely botched the contextual menu that pops up when you have attachments for files. You know, it's the little button with the headers that's lighter than the rest of the "platinum"-styled buttons. It's one thing for Firefox to have inconsistent menus, it's an entirely different thing for Mail to have them.
Folders in the Dock A long time ago, I didn't use the Finder, but this wasn't because I used Spotlight, it was because I used folders in the dock. Unfortunately this only works when you are using the dock non-exclusively with only a small amount of files. For one, it seems like there can only be 198 items in the contextual menu that pops up. At that point you might say "198 files... you're crazy!" Not exactly. *Looks at Desktop* Right now my Desktop has 1017 files on it. (Why? Because as of *checks* 28 June, I realised there is no longer any point to organise files. I have Spotlight now, why organise?)
So anyway, these contextual menus in the Dock do not support all a folder's items. What if instead of menus that try to display all of the items, it was a spotlight search menu, restricted to the Folder you put there. This functionality is very primitively present right now. If you have a lot of items you can begin typing an item's name and it will jump to that item (that is, by the way, how I can handle having so many items). The only difference would be that now instead of jumping to an item based on its name, it jumps based on searching the file. Ok, I realise that was more of a wish than anything else, but it still stands that the current system cannot handle large numbers of items very well. If all of your items do fit into the menu, having a search field would still be easier for you.
Google is nice... but...With Tiger came a contextual menu item that allows you to search for the selected text in Google. This item is extremely useful, I utilise it often. However, there is a big problem with it: it locks you into one search engine. While I understand that Google is great and all, it is at the very least poor form (and at the most, illegal) to prevent you from choosing your system's search engine. There could be one simple option in System Preferences that could also change the search field in Safari.