Re: Proposed module: gnome-main-menu

[Steve Frécinaux <nudrema gmail com>]

Richard Hughes wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 19:34 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote:
> > Information about gnome-main-menu:
> > http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-October/msg00221.html
>
> -1 from me, on no technical merit other than I don't like what it looks
> like and I didn't like using it.

-1 too.

It's of no use, and worse than other ways of achieving the same 
functionnalities. (Note that I don't have beagle, and that beagle is not 
part of GNOME anyway)

So, a few rants (using gmm from edgy, sorry if it has changed since):

  - "favourite apps" seems limited to 6. But I use:
    - xchat-irc, gajim, liferea and such daily
    - epiphany, thunderbird, devhelp, gedit, terminal, matlab, pepito,
      "home folder" every now.
    So that makes obviously more than 6, and those are more easily and
    quickly available from launchers in the panel. One less click.
    And, as Alan pointed in another mail, "favourite" is not a good
    word: I really don't like pepito.

  - "places" is very limited (contains only "computer", "network",
    "home" and "cd burner"). Places menu allows me to access all my
    local bookmarks and remote locations with one click and, at worst,
    one submenu.

  - "more applications" is damn slow in comparision with the current
    application menu, and really harsh to use if you know what you are
    looking for, in terms of time and mouse moves.

  - "system" bits are longer to reach than current ones, if taking into
    account that the admin and pref menus are obsoleted with the new
    control-center UI.

  - status informations are not very relevant:
    - network status is already shown by nm-applet.
    - free disk space is not what `df -h /home` tells me.

  - UI does not look like anything common in Gnome:
    - the frames in the side bars don't have the usual layout.
    - the background colour of the side bars is not the colour my theme
      defines.
    - the blue borders look rather strange in the classical Gnome
      environment and rather neutral colouring.
    - the combobox to choose which panel to show. IMHO a notebook would
      be better (and one click less)...

In short I'm very disappointed by it and I wouldn't like to use it at 
all, unless there were drastic improvements in both the UI (especially 
wrt ease of use for users that know what they want to do) and speed.

I'm rather surprised accessibility tests tell this one is better than 
the current Gnome menu.