Menus & Launchers (Re: Adding "Edit Menu" to the Actions menu)

[Chris Chabot <chabotc xs4all nl>]

I hate to refer to other GUI's when discussing features, but i have 
noticed i have fallen in love with XP's ability to right click on a menu 
entry, and selecting delete, cut, paste, copy (umm, create shortcut?) or 
even drag & dropping it into another menu folder.. even being able to 
change the order of menu items this way.

I gues it's a feature not a lot all ppl would use since it's a bit 
tech-skill dependent, however it fits into the 'everything is an object 
and roughly behaves in the same way' idea behind gui's.. following that 
thought it makes perfect sence to drag&drop and perform other file 
operations on menu items. Especialy since we use the file manager as the 
menu editor.. And hey, i love being able to easely change my menu's 
without finding buttons, options and editors ;-)

The different menu's you get when clicking a launcher on a panel, and 
the menu you get when you right click a menu seems confusing.. A 
launcher is a launcher right? Same icon.. same action .. same 
properties; But yet different? (you will find XP's quick-lauch icons 
which is like our panel launchers and XP's menu's behave the same, with 
the same menu's and drag&dropable transparently accross the desktop, 
taskbar and menu's; Seems to make more sence to me and easier to learn & 
teach

In that spirit, i have to say that the current options sound confusing 
to me.. Add entire menu to drawer? Put into run dialog? Add launcher to 
panel? And why can't i right click on a menu 'folder' ? Also why is this 
so different from the normal cut/past/copy/rename/delete operations on 
documents and folders? There's no easely locatable help on it either, 
nor is it inate GUI knowledge for most ppl..

Enough ranting for now i gues ;-)

   -- Chris

Todd Kulesza wrote:

> I wrote up a small patch that adds an Edit Menu launcher to the 
> Actions menu.  My thinking was that menu editing isn't very 
> discoverable in its current implementation of right-clicking.  This 
> launcher just opens up the nautilus applications: URI where people 
> have the Edit->Cut/Copy/Paste and File->New Launcher commands readily 
> available.  I have a screenshot up at:
>
> http://dropline.net/gnome/optical/menu_edit_and_shadow.png