Re: GNOME Goal Proposal: Port to GMenu

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Matteo Settenvini
<matteo-ml member fsf org> wrote:
> 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.

Right, so this is another reason why it is important for us to ensure
that the app menu is always populated. As this functionality becomes
universal people will discover it more quickly and we can do more to
advertise it to users.

> 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.

I think that all of this can be overcome with consistency. Users just
need to learn the new structure.

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

Is that so terrible?

> 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.
...

It's ok to have items in two places, provided we do it in a predictable way.

Having app menus that are located in the top bar is fantastic with the
new app designs. On average size displays and below, they are superb
with a maximised window that has had its titlebar removed. They also
mean that everything in the window can be context bound, with the
toolbar adjusting to the content that is below. As more of the new
apps start coming through, these advantages should start to be readily
apparent, and it's encouraging to see new apps like Clocks, Photos and
Videos starting to emerge.

We can't redesign all our apps all at once. What we can do is
concentrate on new core apps now and update existing ones to be
consistent where possible. In the future I would hope that we can get
all our apps to the stage where they more strongly benefit from new
parts of the UX like the app menus.

Allan
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