Re: Menu customization

[John R Sheets <dusk smsi-roman com>]

Martin Wahlen wrote:
> 
> Should the menu structure be "theamable"? What I am asking is should it be
> possible to delete/change menu items at runtime? What do you guys think.

That's a very cool, dangerous feature.  I like it.  However, the
only way I think this'll work is if GNOME keeps track of the
original default menu at all times.  You'd have to be able to
click an option and instantly get the original menu back. 
This'll save people who--ooops!--deleted the "Font" menu last
week and need it back for just one operation.  It'll also help
people working on other's desktops, if they can instantly return
to a "sane" menu configuration.

To expand this concept, what does everyone think about a
configurable "User" menu that will follow the user around through
all GNOME apps?  Maybe something highly customizable, like a Tool
menu.  They could build it with some global GNOME utility (which
would also enable/disable it).  Each app should also be able to
turn it on/off on a case-by-case basis.  I'm envisioning
something like the AmigaDOS Tools menu that floated through the
list a while back.

A step further would be to allow specific menu items to be
locally added to the User menus, items that wouldn't show up in
other applications.  This would mean that the User menu would
have to be configurable from a global scope (probably the Panel),
as well as from a local scope (from the app's foot menu).

The User menu would allow users to run common command line
operations from a menu.  For example, if the user had a special
directory for his text documents, he could create a global
"User->Open Documents Folder" item that brings up mc pointing at
that directory.  In a word processor, the user could add a local
entry, "User->Open as HTML", which would open up a given file
(the current file?) in, say, Navigator.  You could edit the raw
HTML in the editor and pull it up in a separate viewer to
cross-check it.  I'm sure there are many other, better, examples
out there.

Whaddaya think?

John