This would probably be a pain to implement, but I'll propose the idea just the same:

It would be neat to have a dynamic popup that placed the popup items in a circle around the right-click point. That way, all items or commands on the popup would be equidistant from the activation point. For a real challenge, it would be graphically impressive to have it rotate clockwise or counterclockwise to put the selected item at the top or bottom.

Just an idea.

Could be done with some seriously heavy scripting...more of a headache I would think though.

scripting? i think more of a new module or a serious update to popup2... ;)
but it would be neat! i think we need more popup possibilities...

textedit...label...popup2...

it can be done...

it can be done, but the problems comes if the "whole thing" is intend to be moved... Humm, and I guess all this stuff will be alwaysontop

mrbiotech, the idea is good :)

to be moved i'd use an lsbox, timer and mzscript formouse location
i've been trying to do it in the last few weeks, but it's a pain.

For animated rotations you would need some cos and sin functions for say, orb-shaped entries (unless you try lsdynamic, but its scripts are static i believe and wouldn't fit in my scheme), but don't rotations defeat the purpose of at least hierarchical pie menus?

Not that I know much about circular menus; I've only ever used the RadialContext Mozilla extension twice; those were short-lived because it just felt too weird :)

I've wondered about this but never tried it.. I thought of using labels as entries inside a donut-shaped lsbox and using precalculated mzscripts (for positioning only certain numbers of entries). But the labels would only be iconic images and have no text.

I guess shortcuts could work for the entries though.. the labels would be the enter+leave trigger for submenus (do math on the entry and exit point to determine if cursor is going in the direction of the entry from the center)..

There could be other possibilities with shortcut3 (alpha-pngs?) and skinbox which I'm not aware of...

I have code to draw rings with an arbitrary number of segments and hit-test those segments, if anyone is interested. (in C)

Rotating the selected element, I think, would be a real pain to use. (although I probably don't understand what you mean)

I've been using LsDynamic to work out the effect with Layercut shortcuts ('cuz it handles circular paths innately). The fact that it also handles acceleration and transparency are major bonues. Can't make a dynamic popup with it, though, and I don't think my scripting capabilities are sufficient.

RabidCow, if you could implement a module that would do this, it would be something utterly cutting edge, and revolutionary for LiteStep. (hint, hint... everybody's seen and admires your work).

There was an old SuperNintendo game that had dynamic menus that did something like this (Illusion of Gaia? Secret of Mana? I can't remember). It's truly awesome to behold!

Hm, that wasn't quite the "interest" I was hoping for... :P Popup2 is extremely complex and should be more modular IMO. For me to write a similar module that I would be happy with would be a major undertaking, and might not be possible to do really well until LS reaches 0.25. (I would split it into display modules and list source modules.)

I might be able to write a very simple module (with no directory reading or anything fancy like that), but it would be a while (I'm not as busy as I like to think I am, but I still have a lot to do...). OTOH, something like that might be good experience for an aspiring module coder, with some of the details of HRGNs already solved. ;)

Someone more ambitious could try patching it into a modified version of popup2, but while this can handle any number of entries, it gets ugly with more than about 12. The whole concept breaks down with too many entries at each level anyway, so some of the automated fills might be a bit of a problem. :/ You could go to multiple concentric rings, but I think that's a suboptimal solution.

I should probably just post the code somewhere with a license stating "have at it!"

I'd like circular systray & taskbar, too

and circular labels ;)

circular rules! :)
i'd love to have a circular monitor :D

I have to say, the radial menu in Neverwinter Nights was pretty simple to work with. It would be pretty neat to see how something like it would work with litestep.

This is a great idea mrbiotech. I read about such a design for a popup in an article that discussed the flaws of the windows interface and the fastest and easiest way to access information with a mouse. A piechart popup allows access to all elements of the popup with only a slight movement of the mouse in any direction. I wish I could remember the address for it as I'm sure a lot of theme developers would find it interesting.

Having too many slices may be a problem unless the circles radius increased to accomodate.

Checkout link 39 on http://www.lo9ic.com/v4/ for similar system using flash.

Pretty cool, DrWorm! I think the article of which you speak was in an article presented in shell-shocked (Tutorial: Design and Fitts Law by Bruce Tognazzini). It can be reached here: http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=191 and provided the most inspiration impetus for the user-configurable hotspot concepts I try to pack into my themes.

Just wanted to mention this...I used to have a Logitech mouse with a left/right/scroll button configuration...when the scroll was clicked on an IExplorer page, a circular popup came up with the stop/back/etc....shortcuts. It scrolled 3/4's of the circle. Not a true popup, but, if Logitech can do it, it can be done with LS, IMHO.

I definatly like this idea. Breaking out of the "Rectangle" of MS Windows is one of the concepts behind any alternative shell. :D

will be nice something like this
(in example of course)

you press the right button of the mouse and show the popup


This menu will work like the game "Secret of Mana" (snes)

if you select one of those... popups fade out 75% of transparencia and 25 degrees near from that apears on top
the second popup menu

will be really nice :)

(omit the points.. just need it to draw it)