Re: GNOME Goal Proposal: Port to GMenu

[Matteo Settenvini <matteo-ml member fsf org>]

Il giorno lun, 07/05/2012 alle 16.15 +1000, Andrew Cowie ha scritto:
> I ask this because Epiphany¹ has no menu, but does and a funky button
> over on the right that, upon investigation, turns out to be a menu has
> useful things like "add bookmark" ... but not preferences! Which,
> eventually and quite by accident, I discovered was in the global GMenu
> thing up top. Oh.

On this note, I have to say it was quite difficult for me at first to
figure out there was a menu hidden under the activity title you see on
the Shell bar. Back in 3.0 and 3.2 days, it contained only a "Exit" item
for all apps I can remember of, and even then, I only discovered it by
mistake - I did not think it was clickable, only a visual
current-application title.

Add to this that most applications present already with a menu bar
inside their window, and it really is hard for a user to figure out
there is a menu *outside* the window. Maybe it's only me (I always found
the Mac OS X approach counter-intuitive too), but having to search menus
in two places isn't ideal.

Also, if I have two apps side-by-side, I need to change the current
focus to click on the GMenu.

So, some consistency is needed, I'd say. Or else instead than one place
for menus, we end up with two places for menus. And with apps like
Evolution, that have a lot of menu items, I am not entirely sure it is
feasible to move them under the upper GMenu.

By the way, and slightly unrelated: F10 allows me to pop up the first
menu, and ALT+"letter" to open a specific one by accelerator. What is
the corresponding shortcut for the upper menu?

Finally, a design question: why GMenu (and some related classes, come to
think of that) are in GIO and not in Gtk+? This is just to understand
the rationale behind the choice. When I looked at the documentation, I
expected at first to find it in Gtk+.

Thanks!
-- 
Matteo Settenvini
FSF Associated Member
Email : matteo member fsf org


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