Another reason is that the Microsoft Office team wrote a custom menu system to support that so it's too much work until Microsoft provides it as a widget.
I think the hiding of menu options leads to an inconsistent interface. I always turn it off in MS Office. The result is that the menu items are always where I expect them to be. I don't care if there are others there that I never use.
I really can't see the problem. How can your learn what the program can do if most of the menu items are hidden? And once you've learnt it, I should think you'd be using the shortcuts all the time anyway.
Sometimes number of options in menu scares me. It would be nice to have auto hidding of rarely used options, just like in MS Office.
Another reason is that the Microsoft Office team wrote a custom menu system to support that so it's too much work until Microsoft provides it as a widget.
http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware3/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=94078
I think the hiding of menu options leads to an inconsistent interface. I always turn it off in MS Office. The result is that the menu items are always where I expect them to be. I don't care if there are others there that I never use.
I really can't see the problem. How can your learn what the program can do if most of the menu items are hidden? And once you've learnt it, I should think you'd be using the shortcuts all the time anyway.
Hint: see http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/shortcuts.php for a list of all the shortcuts.
Ok, I see the point, It makes sense. My post was written after second use of the excellent program...