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You're describing the choice of a command from the
menu bar, not a toolbar. But this is moot, since
in my opinion you don't have to specify that
commands are chosen from the menu bar. It's
something the user already knows.
Even though the ">" convention is unusual, it IS a
concise way of specifying the "path" the reader
follows to get to the command in question. More
important, it lists the items the reader
experiences IN THE SEQUENCE of the experience.
To elaborate, if you said "Choose the New Record
Command from the Add menu," the reader would have
to parse your sentence backwards to find out where
to start clicking. If you say "From the Add menu,
choose New Record," the reader can simply follow
the sequence of the sentence.
Finally to punctuate the construction you
suggested, I'd use:
>From the toolbar click Add, then select New Record
from the Add
menu.
