s Refactoring tools promise to increase the speed at which programmers write code, but programmers report that contemporary tools sometimes slow them down. Some of that slowdown can be attributed to the time it takes to activate refactoring tools, typically with a combination of code selection, hotkeys, linear menus, and wizard interfaces. In this paper, I present pie menus and refactoring cues, two new mechanisms for activating refactoring tools. These mechanisms were designed to accommodate how programmers want to refactor and to make good on the promise of refactoring tools to help programmers write code faster. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.3 [Software Engineering]: Coding Tools and Techniques; D.2.6 [Software Engineering]: Programming Environments General Terms Design, Reliability, Human Factors Keywords Refactoring tools, usability, environments
Emerson R. Murphy-Hill