Re: slab menu

[Jef Driesen <jefdriesen hotmail com>]

coz DelSignore wrote:
> [long post removed]

After reading the many comments (both positive and negative) about this 
new slab menu, I decided to try it myself. I wanted to try the latest 
version from svn, but it always came up larger than my screen height, 
causing the lower contents and buttons to become invisible. So, I tested 
the version included with ubuntu 6.10 (my daily system) and also 
opensuse 10.2.

There where some positive things, but in the end I didn't like the new 
slab menu. Here are my comments:

1. Most of the time I know which application I need, and the old menus 
gives me near instant access (only three quick clicks: one for the menu, 
one for the submenu and one for the launcher itself). The new slab menu 
feels much slower, although the number of clicks remains the same (one 
for the menu, one for the "More Applications" button and on for the 
launcher itself). Using the application browsers is way too slow in this 
case. It takes several seconds to load (second launch is faster, but not 
fast enough) and it presents a very large list, which requires extra 
clicks, scrolling or typing.

For the applications I use very often (Firefox, Thunderbird, 
Terminal,...), I have a separate launcher on the panel, requiring only 
one click. But that is the same for both menu systems.

2. When I don't know the application (or it's location/category), the 
new slab menu is better. I can now easily browse the list of all 
available applications, take advantage of the extra description besides 
the name and even search. The slower load time mentioned above is less 
problematic in this case.

3. The application browser looks like a normal application, but behaves 
like a menu, e.g. clicking an item closes the browser. That was very 
confusing for me. Especially because the slab menu could have an 
advantage here for opening more than one application. To make it worse, 
the opensuse control panel (which has the same look and feel as the 
application browser) remains open after clicking an item.

4. Switching between recently used (or favorite) applications (or 
documents) is not as easy as it should be (requires too many clicks). 
Because of that, I never used it (except for trying it out of course). 
There is also no equivalent for the old Places menu (which I normally 
use very often).

5. The items in the list of recently used applications (or documents) is 
very dynamic. That makes is somewhat difficult to predict which items 
will be there the next time you open the menu. So you need to scan the 
list every time to see if the application is there or not. In the old 
menu, items are always at a fixed location. (This is exactly the same 
reason why I use the classic start menu in Windows XP.)

I don't have a need for the list of favorite applications, because I 
have launchers for them on the panel (see #1).