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

[aigiskos <aigiskos yahoo com>]

Comments in-line...

--- Nigel Tao <nigel tao myrealbox com> wrote:

> > 1) Tool driven: [Applications]
> > 2) Spatially-oriented: [Places]
> >       Home
> >       Computer [== root + desktop + media +
> network]
> >       ---------
> >       Floppy
> >       [other expandable media inserted here]
> >       ---------
> >       Network =>
> >       The Web
> 
> "The Web" as a place - I presume that that would
> open the default
> browser to the default home page.  Interesting
> idea...
> 

Yes, that was what I was thinking.  The default
application that would handle webbrowsing would be
launched on clicking this menu item.

> >       ---------
> >       Recent Places =>
> >       Favorite Places =>
> >       ---------
> >       Find a Place
> > 3) Verb-driven: [Actions]
> >      Surf the Internet
> >      Check E-Mail
> >      Listen to Music
> >      Watch a Movie
> >      ----------------
> >      Draft a Document
> >      Create a Spreadsheet
> >      Edit Images
> >      ... [this middle section would be difficult
> to
> > manage]
> 
> To me, this middle section looks a lot like the
> Applications menu to
> start with.  "Create a Spreadsheet" is equivalent to
> Office ->
> Spreadsheet.
> 

(By the way, I would think the preferred applications
would dictate which underlying program would open upon
clicking an "action.") 

That's true: there is a lot of similarity here.  Red
Hat and others prefer to use the generic name in the
menu. One problem that might arise in this situation
is if you have more than one program in a certain
category.  Would both gedit and vim show up as "Text
Editor"?  If so, how does the novice user know which
one to click?

I guess the thought-scenarios I had in mind for the
Applications, Places, Action top-level items would be
the following:

Applications: "I want to draft a letter, and I know
that I like to use Abiword to draft letters.  So, I
want to open Abiword, even if I'm not sure where it
is."

Places: "I want to edit a letter.  I drafted the
letter (I think it had to do with chimpanzees), but I
forget what program I used to write it (Word?), but I
think I saved the document in my /Documents folder."

Actions: "I want to draft a letter.  I have no idea
what program to use or where to go to find it."

One neat thing about the Actions menu is that it could
be scriptable for Advanced users (or distributions
with special needs built in).  e.g. "Get exact time"
could be a script which would open up an internet
connection, get the time to the atomic clock, and set
the local clock to the atomic clock time.

Also, this idea of the Actions menu makes it much less
the hodge-podge-we-don't-know-where-else-to-put-it
menu  but rather a clear verb-oriented set of actions.

That's my 2 cents, at any rate.  Cheers!

~Andrew

=====
~~~~~~~~~
dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.


		
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