Re: Menubar (and Empty Default Desktop) Proposals for GNOME 2.10

[Ken Harris <ken bitpoetry com>]

Re my Nautilus Menu applet: the "special tricks like
double-click-on-menu-item-to-open-nautilus" was obviously not a design
decision.  I was imitating the old Mac Apple-menu, and am not a good
enough GDK/Gtk+ programmer to make it actually work right.  (It's on the
TODO list, see?)  If you know how, please let me know!  :-)

To the suggested Places menu, I have 2 answers.

Answer #1:

There was a suggestion on nautilus-list last year (June 2003) to move
the default locations of the icons (Computer, Home, Trash, ...) to the
right side.  The idea is that windows open on the left side, so as it is
now, the first window you open hides every icon you care about -- if the
icons were on the right side of the desktop, they'd still be visible.  I
don't think it ever got anywhere, but not because there were any really
good arguments against it (IIRC): just the usual "30 heated messages in
2 days, nothing gets decided, and everybody drops it" that I see on this
list, too.

I think moving the icons to the right, out from under most windows,
would alleviate much (but maybe not all) of the need for adding
redundant menus -- more controls to do the same things as controls we
already have!  When you already have a way to do something, but it's too
hard, instead of adding a second way to do it, why not first make the
existing way easier?

Answer #2:

These menus (Applications, Actions) have always seemed a hack to me --
note that nobody can even come up with a good name for "Actions", which
is a good indicator (IME).  And I'm not in favor of adding more; in
fact, I'm in favor of consolidating them.  (For example, is "Take
Screenshot" really so important that it needs to be a primary system
control?  Doubtful.  Just make it a normal program, and if you need to
make a lot of screenshots, you can add a launcher to your panel.)

With a little bit of work, I think it's possible to consolidate
Applications and Actions into one menu, without making it much/any
longer than the Applications menu is now.  (I'll post a proposal.)  Some
advantages of having a single menu:

- no longer need separate "Main Menu" / "Menu Bar" panel applets, which
always confused me (I think having 2 almost-but-not-quite-identical
versions of the system menu to choose from is what I've heard called
'shoving design decisions onto the user')
- more space on the panel for the user's stuff (launchers and applets
and window lists and whatever else he wants)
- consequence of more space on top panel: one panel might be enough for
all his stuff now, so he won't need top *and* bottom panels, which gets
him more work space (another couple lines of text when reading email,
for example)
- faster to use, since you'll never wonder "Which menu is XXX under?",
or have to pull down both to see
- *cough* leaves the door open for, oh, say, changing from having /n/
menubars at the top of each window to one menubar at the top of the
screen, where it's faster to hit and takes up less space overall; (OK, I
know I'm going to take heat for suggesting the Mac menubar, but whenever
it's brought up in the past it seems to be dismissed out of hand for
technical reasons before anybody can discuss whether it's actually any
good; if we get rid of the technical reasons, one by one, then
eventually we'll be in the position to make a decision based on design
and usability)

I can't really think of a good reason to have 2 system menus on the
panel, other than "we couldn't think of what else to do".


If you want the Cliff notes version of what I'm suggesting:
- Increasing the number of system menus is a step backwards; instead,
move the desktop icons to the right so you don't need this, and think
about reducing the number of menus in the future


- Ken