Re: Proposal: gnome-main-menu for inclusion in GNOME 2.18

[Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com>]

On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 20:25 +0200, Martin Ejdestig wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 13:11 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> > The menu thing looks like the Mac menu, but doesn't
> > behave anything like the real thing does on Mac OS.
> 
> And the slab thing looks like Windows' start menu but doesn't behave
> anything like the "real thing" on Windows. Or did I miss something? :)

It matches the behavior more closely than the menu bar applet does.

> (FWIW, I don't think it matters much how much something might or might
> not look like something else on some other system...)

It depends on where the difference is. The two main types of
differentiation here are:

1) It's different enough to be better.

2) It's just different enough to be confusing.

The slab falls into category 1, while the menu bar falls into category 2
here. The default panel layout in GNOME looks like some inane mix of Mac
OS and Windows, and has been a point of confusion for many people
switching over. Power user Martin Eidestig might be used to using that
layout, and may have been for some time, but John Q. Customer who has
been using Windows his whole life, won't be. The significance of how
much it is like, or unlike, a similar specific interface on Windows or
Mac OS, is that we need to define our target audience. Without a target,
we can't reasonably say what is truly best for the desktop.

-- dobey