Menubar (and Empty Default Desktop) Proposals for GNOME 2.10

[Nigel Tao <nigel tao myrealbox com>]

This isn't a module proposal, but it is something that I would like to
see for 2.10 - and I presume that this is the right forum to raise this.

I have one small proposal and one less-small proposal for the GNOME menu
bar (the "Applications Actions" menu).


The small proposal is to add the "Web Browser" and "E-mail" launchers to
the top of the application menu.  WindowsXP does it
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/images/img009.jpg),
Novell Linux Desktop does it
(http://aoeu.standardout.com/lxer/tom/26363/menu.jpg), and I like the
idea.  Two of the most frequent things that I do with my computer are
browse and e-mail, to the extent that I have placed a browser launcher
in one of Fitt's favorite corners (it's ugly, but effective).  A "Web
Browser" menu item at the top of the Applications menu would be almost
as easy to launch (slam mouse into top left corner, click, and then a
little flick of the wrist down to the first menu item), whilst more
aesthetically pleasing.


The less-small proposal is to add a "Places" menu as a sibling of the
"Applications" and "Actions" menu.  This is inspired by what Ubuntu has
already done (screenshot: http://osdir.com/screenshots/gnome2.8/35.gif,
source code: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gnome-panel/)
to further a document-centric (rather than application-centric) way to
use my computer.  Unlike previous File Menu Applets and Nautilus Menu
Applets, on activation this one simply opens the nautilus (spatial)
window for e.g. the Home folder, rather than presenting an unwieldy
(IMHO) series of drill-down sub-menus (requiring special tricks like
double-click-on-menu-item-to-open-nautilus).

I have written a "Places Menu" python applet as a proof-of-concept for
this.  You can try it out now, on GNOME 2.8, without having to re-
compile gnome-panel.  Ideally, though, this would be part of the GNOME
menu bar (and thus be part of the gnome-panel C source code).

Screenshot: http://browserbookapp.sourceforge.net/ (scroll down to the
second image)
Download: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?
group_id=122136&package_id=135923

The places in the "Places" menu would be:
Home [see note 1]
Desktop [see note 1]
Computer
Network
Trash
Templates [see note 2]
---
Floppy
CD-ROM
and other Drives and Volumes [see note 3]
---
GtkFileChooser bookmark 1
GtkFileChooser bookmark 2
and other gtk-bookmarks
---
Recent Documents [see note 4]
Open Location... [see note 5]


Things not in the menu:
File-system root (file:///)
Search for Files (it stays in Actions, if not superseded by Beagle)

Another motivation for this is that (together with the new trash applet
in 2.9) it allows me to work with an empty desktop.  Ubuntu defaults to
an empty desktop, and that first impression gives me a sense of elegant
simplicity (whilst still being actually useful) - and I would like to
see GNOME 2.10 do likewise.

One possible caveat is that I cannot drag-and-drop to the Home folder in
the menu bar, whilst I can to the Home folder on the desktop.  But
similarly I currently cannot drag an image file (that normally opens
with eog) to the menu bar -> Applications -> Graphics -> GIMP Image
Editor.  Maybe DnD support for the menu bar can be added in the future.
Of course, you can always first open the Home folder and then drag items
onto it.

Here are a couple of opposing quotes that might kick off the debate:
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an
empty desk?" -- Albert Einstein
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery


[Note 1]
If Home == Desktop, then which of the two should I show?  I am leaning
towards "Home".

[Note 2]
I am not sure if Templates belongs in this menu at all.

[Note 3]
Panel-menu access to drives looks related to, but not conflicting with,
the new (2.9) vfs-based drivemount applet.  My python implemention
currently does not show VFS drives and volumes (e.g. mounted CD-ROMs)
because, AFAIK, the python gnome.vfs bindings are not sufficiently
complete.  The screenshot mentioned above shows placeholder menu
entries.  C code currently exists (see the drivemount applet source) to
enumerate such drives (and get their icons and URIs), though.

[Note 4]
The Recent Documents sub-menu would move from where they already exist,
in the Actions menu.

[Note 5]
This opens an "Open Location" dialog similar to what you can get in
nautilus when you hit Ctrl-L.  But there is no such "nautilus --show-
open-location-dialog" command, so as a temporary measure I have simply
hacked up my own dialog.  I asked the nautilus-list whether such a
command-line argument would be a good idea, and was pointed out that you
could already do something similar with the "Run" Alt-F2 dialog, and
simply enter something like "/home/ntao/Downloads".  But I find this
unintuitive - I don't 'Run' my folder - and so I see the options are
1) use Run to open locations,
2) use Run to open locations, but change the wording of the dialog,
3) hack nautilus to add a "--show-open-location-dialog" option, or
4) copy-and-paste an "Open Location" dialog based heavily on nautilus
code.
Any thoughts?


Finally, I would like to see this in GNOME 2.10, and I would love to
contribute somehow.  But I am not a confident C hacker and I have never
tried to build GNOME from source.  So if people like the idea (do people
like the idea???), I am hoping someone out there in the community knows
how to take the work already done by Ubuntu to take this forward.


Sincerely,
Nigel.