Imagine a piece of paper tape divided into brightly colored squares, with computer commands or selections written in the squares. Trim off any excess and glue the ends together to make it into a loop.
That's pretty much what an AUI menu is like, except that you don't see those computer commands and selections; you hear them — the color bars in the display screen pictured here are the visual display of the menu — the brightly colored squares.
As the mouse's scroll wheel spins or the mouse moves backward and forward on the table, the tape 'moves' under the mouse, and the bars rotate on the display.
Every time a new square is entered, the content of that square is spoken by the computer. Pressing and holding down the left button provides a more detailed explanation of the state of the activity. Double-clicking selects that cell for action (in the text menu, a triple click gets a capital letter).
Menus are composed of 'items' or cells, and the cells are almost always grouped into sections; there's always a section of commands to exit the current activity, set preferences, etc. There can be sections of numerals and operators in the Calculator; letters, numerals, and punctuation in the Text Editor, etc.
The mouse is a tremendously important part of AUI. It's the heart of the hardware, so it needs to be reliable, simple, and easy and comfortable to use. The computer is (can be) completely controlled, and all data entered, by nothing more than actions with the mouse, and it's used in a very different way from the way a GUI uses it — AUI is much more interested in mouse actions than it is in mouse location.
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Moving the mouse: Mouse motion toward or away from the user is used to move from one menu cell to another. There are sound effects when a cell changes, and the selection available in the new cell is spoken.
Lateral movement is ignored, except for the erase described below.
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The scroll wheel: The scroll wheel is also used to move through the menus. It's actually the preferred way to move around — once the scroll wheel is used, the back and forth motion of the mouse no longer has an effect.
A 'spin' of the scroll wheel, in either direction, will move a number of spaces. When this capability was first added, I kept spinning past the end of the menu section. So 'speedBumps' were introduced.
If, for example, the user is on '7' in a menu of numerals and spins the scroll wheel, the menu movement will always stop on the speedBump at the end of that section of the menu (the computer 'thumps' in the speakers).
The real menu cells are brightly colored in the display, but the speed bumps are always a drab gray.
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The left button: Pressing the left button will cause the current menu cell's selection to be spoken, and to be displayed in the center menu bar in the display. The illustration shows a cell from the Login activity with the left button pressed.
Holding down the left button down causes an extended 'something' to happen — in the Calculator activity, the entire calculation so far is recited; in a menu of sound recordings, a preview of the recording is played; or sometimes just a more detailed explanation of a menu selection is spoken: here, the Narrator says, "Double click to log in Jerry Chamkis". Whatever's going on, it will stop immediately when the button is released.
Double clicking selects the menu cell for action.
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The right button: In any menu, an rClick will skip forward to the beginning of the next section of the menu. This is kind of analogous to moving from one menu to another in a GUI.
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Erase: The mouseErase is a 'mouse gesture' generated by wagging the mouse — moving the it from side to side a few times, fairly quickly. It means, approximately, "No".
It's used to stop a playlist in the Recordings activity, and as an undo or an alternative to the delete/backspace key in character entry menus.
When the computer detects an erase, it plays a 'squeaky clean' sound effect.