Re: slab menu

[JP Rosevear <jpr novell com>]

On Tue, 2007-02-06 at 11:32 +0100, Jef Driesen wrote:
> 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.

There has been a thought to tie alt-f2 to the app browser since it will
filter based on binary name and if you filter to one item and hit enter,
it launches the app for you.

> 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.

There is actually a gconf key for this (one of the urgent close keys),
the control center does not close on click and uses the same code.

> 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).

Please see the new branch Jim has been working on, its buttons now to
switch between.  Also recent and favorite apps are on the same page,
cutting access time way down.

> 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.)

But the favorites are fixed and the recent docs are like the recent docs
in the existing menu in terms of order.

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

Right, this is exactly what I used to use, but this caused me to always
use two panels because of the amount of real estate these took up plus
the three pronged menu, I save a lot of space with the slab.

-JP
-- 
JP Rosevear <jpr novell com>
Novell, Inc.