Re: Recently used applications - preference needed?

[mike <mike redtux demon co uk>]

On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 13:56, Luis Villa wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 10:52, axel c wrote:
> > On Tue, 2002-10-29 at 11:44, Dave Bordoley wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 20:50, John McCutchan wrote:
> > > 
> > 
> > i think perhaps the importance of the 'recent apps' menu entry is being
> > over-estimated -- after all, user can put launchers for most used apps
> > in the panel and access them with A SINGLE CLICK. and it's bloody easy
> > to do so with the 'add this launcher to panel' right-click option (at
> > least in this rh8 gnome2 i am using, i guess it's standard)...
> > 
> > can it get easier than that?
> 
> Yes; if they were on my alt+f1 menu I could access them with (at most)
> alt+f1 and arrow keys.
> 
> Luis
> 
> > > Maybe I should elaborate on my reasoning for not wanting this feature.
> > > 
> > > First some comments on menu structure. With the current layout of the
> > > gnome menu, we only have two levels of hierarchy, the main applications
> > > drop down menu and one level of sub-menus. For example to browse the web
> > > the user only has to click on Applications, search for the internet
> > > category and than select web browser. Contrast the same action with
> > > windows in which the user needs to select start => programs => mozilla
> > > => mozilla web browser (there are examples of even deeper hierarchy in
> > > windows). 
> > > 
> > > Deep hierarchies in the windows menu layout are most likely the reason
> > > that microsoft added the recent apps feature (using their menus is very
> > > hard, they knew this and tried to make it incrementally better).
> > > Contrast that to the lack of hierarchy in the gnome menu layout (plus
> > > our really good categorization and tool based names, ie web browser, not
> > > mozilla). How is accessing an app(say a web browser) in Applications =>
> > > Recent => web browser(an arbitrary category who's contents are not well
> > > defined and may change) any faster than applications => internet => web
> > > browser (this menu is static and always contains the same items in the
> > > same order).  
> > > 
> > > Basically my view is that gnome does not suffer from the usability flaws
> > > that make the recent apps feature necessary (we have a very shallow menu
> > > hierarchy, and for bonus points we have good categorization and app
> > > naming).
> > > 
> > > dave

This seems to be pretty much a 50-50 split, so would seem (especially as
the patch already exists) a case for a compile time option

-- 
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