{"id":31987,"date":"2021-03-24T16:49:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T20:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=31987"},"modified":"2021-03-24T16:49:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T20:49:26","slug":"big-surs-gray-menu-keyboard-shortcuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/24\/big-surs-gray-menu-keyboard-shortcuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Sur’s Gray Menu Keyboard Shortcuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Drang<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The M1 MacBook Air is the only machine I have running Big Sur, and for the first few days I kept wondering why certain commands were disabled. They weren’t—I was confused about their status because the gray keyboard shortcut was catching my eye and the black command name wasn’t. It wasn’t until I slowed down and looked at the menus carefully that I noticed the contradictory text coloring.<\/p>\n

I’ve been using Macs since 1985, and gray text in a menu item has always<\/em> meant “disabled.” This was true even though early Macs didn’t have true gray. Among Mac users, “grayed out” is a synonym for “disabled” and has been for ages. Now, because looking cool is taking precedence over clear communication, we have menu items that tell us the command is available but the keyboard shortcut isn’t.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The presentation of keyboard shortcuts is in that same vein: by making them grey, the thinking presumably went, the command becomes more prominent and indicates availability, while the keyboard shortcut is still shown for those who need it. But is this a problem that needs solving? Are even the pickiest designers bothered by the apparent clutter of keyboard shortcuts in menus? If you want to consider it a problem, this solution means that the keyboard shortcut is hard to read and the meaning of grey text is ambiguous.<\/p>\n

Oh, and for extra measure, it is compounded by physical keyboards that do not share the same markings<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I always sensed that something was wrong in Big Sur’s menus, but I thought it was the strange decision to have curved edges on the top portions of the drop-down, which breaks the metaphor that they’re connected to the solid edge of the menu bar. But graying out (and that is absolutely what I call it) keyboard shortcuts is also weird and wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n