Re: [Usability] Re: Future of the menu top bar?

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 14 May 2006, at 21:20, Alan Horkan wrote:

> I would have thought both Sun and Novell would want to avoid having to
> maintain layouts different from the Gnome default but it must not be
> too much hassle to maintain a relatively small but distinctive
> difference.  Maybe this is an intentional differentiation point.

FWIW, the reason Sun went with the bottom panel only was pretty  
straightforward-- at the time, our number one request from customers  
who were considering switching from Windows to Linux was that "the  
desktop has to look exactly like Windows".  So, for better or for  
worse, we did our best.

Now, though, we have another reason... the Trusted Extensions version  
of Solaris JDS that we're working on requires a dedicated 'security  
stripe' along the top of the screen:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/Stephen?entry=trusted_jds_screenshots

so having a top GNOME panel as well wouldn't be very practical.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            Java Desktop System Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems