Vivoactive6 simulator: menu key not working

PS: also I think the View.setActionMenuIndicator is a cool step into the direction of having easily accessible indicators for behaviors (instead of inputs), that are also in line with the native UI of the watch. Would be great to have something like that for other behaviors as well, and also a view loop that just visually aligns with however native view loops work for the device.

I agree with this, although I think setActionMenuIndicator was implemented for vivoactive6 out of necessity, not convenience. (As the standard way to provide a context-sensitive menu on va6 seems to be display an action menu indicator, and va6 does not have a universal menu button/touch gesture.)

For example, fr955 arguably has an "action menu indicator" - it just happens to look exactly the same as the START button hint that's used in other cases.

When an action menu is available on fr955:

- the standard START button hint is displayed

- the user can open the action menu by swiping left (just like va6), tapping on the button hint, or pressing START

So the action menu functionality on fr955 is *almost* like the action menu functionality on VA6 except that fr955 doesn't have a unique UI hint and there's more than one way to open the action menu.

Nonetheless, setActionMenuIndicator() seems to be dedicated to VA6 (for now).

Not only do the docs for setActionMenuIndicator() say "since 5.1.1", but the supported devices list is limited to VA6. (If this was intended eventually to be universal functionality, I would've expected there to be no supported devices list at all.)

Then again, maybe I'm wrong and this will be brought to FR955 and other 5-button watches.

PS: also I think the View.setActionMenuIndicator is a cool step into the direction of having easily accessible indicators for behaviors (instead of inputs), that are also in line with the native UI of the watch. Would be great to have something like that for other behaviors as well, and also a view loop that just visually aligns with however native view loops work for the device.

I think it might be time for me to reconsider the navigation structure in my app.

In my mental model, I use onPreviousPage and onNextPage to move between views on the same level. onSelect is used to dive into subordinate views - those slide in from the right. Conversely, onBack brings the user back up a level, with the view sliding in from the left. Then there’s onMenu, which I treat as something a bit outside of this two-dimensional structure - it opens up additional information related to whatever is currently on display.

Of course, this isn’t a universal rule. For example, on my Epix 2 Pro, some native apps show an indicator for onMenu in the left-center, which in my opinion still interferes less with my two-dimensional navigation model than the approach of the Vivoactive 6.

So, for my app, onActionMenu is closer in spirit to onSelect, and that’s how I plan to implement it.

This isn't meant as criticism of the changes being introduced, but rather as a reflection on the broader challenge of adapting an app to the differing UI paradigms across watches. And that, as a developer, it’s tough to fully understand the navigation principles of a device you don’t personally own.

TL;DR yes it looks like onMenu is not supported for vivoactive6, and the "new" way of implementing context-sensitive menus is solely via action menus (and the only way to open an action menu on VA6 is to swipe the on-screen action menu indicator).

I think Garmin has been going in this direction for a long time, and getting rid of the standard menu button gesture is the logical end result.

Something like this is better than the situation with spotify (or any other music provider) on 5-button watches, where there's literally two different menus available at the music player screen: one of them is opened by short-pressing UP (or tapping on the corresponding button hint) and the other is opened by long-pressing UP.

Or how about the situation with native activities on 5-button watches? On the activity start page (before the timer is started), short pressing UP gives you a "short" menu with *only* activity-related items. But long pressing UP gives you a "long" menu with the activity-related items followed by general watch settings. And in this "long" menu, there are two "Navigation" items (the first one is related to initiating navigation for the activity, while the second one is general navigation settings).

Hopefully Garmin continues to simplify things (although 5-button "touch-optional" watches will always be more confusing than "touch-first" watches, since there always needs to be a way to do the essential functions only using the buttons.)

At first glance this seems like a super radical change: Vivoactive 6 is literally the first Garmin watch which doesn't have a universal "menu" button / gesture.

Every other Garmin watch has some sort of universal (or near-universal) gesture to open a context-sensitive menu:

- dedicated physical (or capacitive touch) menu button

- "menu button gesture" corresponding to long press of a certain button (like UP on 5-button watches). (But even on 5-button watches, in *some* cases, long press of UP does something else, like panning/zooming the map faster than normal)

- long-press screen to open menu (Vivoactive 3, as it only has 1 button)

But I know runners who've worn a Garmin for years and are completely unaware that holding UP is supposed to open a context-sensitive menu / settings menu. Obviously there's nothing intuitive about the previous system.

Obviously Garmin noticed this a long time ago, which is why they changed the activity start page so you can just short-press UP to open the menu (and there's an accompanying button hint). Fenix 8 took this further and allowed you to swipe for settings on the activity start page.

Apparently, Vivoactive 6 is taking this even further by ditching the universal menu gesture, and instead showing an on-screen interactive hint (action menu indicator) for *all* context-sensitive menus, which can only be activated by touch.

Ofc 5-button watches which support touch will probably still need a dedicated menu button/gesture, as they're meant to have full (or nearly full) functionality when touch is disabled. But I wonder if the action menu indicator (or something like it) will eventually appear on all Garmin devices.

It seems that any app which implements a context-sensitive menu will be required to use the action menu indicator, as there's no longer a generic way to open a menu by pressing (or long pressing) a physical button

To expand on this, I assume that any app which wants to display a context-sensitive full-screen menu (such as a settings menu) will be "required" to first provide the user with an action menu; the action menu can have an item which opens the full-screen menu (like "Settings").

Or it could also work the way DCR described accessing watch settings, where settings is just another item in the activity/app list. ofc that only works if you're already displaying some kind of menu or list in the first place.