Re: [evince] the menu bar is gone

[Edwin Pujols <edwinpm5 gmail com>]

The bug about the app menu (and the Help menu item) not appearing in Xfce,
has it been reported?

I would like to give my humble opinion about the new interface, too :)

Not sure if you've considered it but some of the actions you've put in the gear

button would look much better in the GNOME Shell app menu (at least I would consider this

a more intuitive approach :)

For example, the recently opened documents could be a dynamic list of a fixed max size
(say 5 or 10 items) in the app menu. And the Preferences and About look more natural

in the app menu.

The close action in the gear button, I think it would be more intuitive if instead

of closing the window it only closed the document. So that if I open a document

I can close it (without closing the window) and then open a new document in
the same window. In the same vein, the open action in the gear button, I think
would be more intuitive if instead of opening a new window, it would just substitute
the current document. That would give you a pretext to add an Open (In) New Window
action to the GNOME Shell app menu.

Well, there are other applications which could use a better implementation of

the UI with respect to GNOME Shell (app menu vs window actions). For example,

Nautilus (the gear button is filled with stuff which would look better in the context menu).

I hope GNOME can develop some sort of guidelines to reduce this appmenu/menubar/buttonbar

madness :)

I am not implying these suggestions just for the usability under GNOME Shell, since

if you fix the Xfce bug (not showing the app menu) it would be a solution in usability
for other DE's which are menubar based. Even better would be if you could make the
UI adapt to the desktop environment (in Xfce and KDE menubars are more intuitive, in

Unity there's no need for menubar/toolbar as long as you supply the actions via dbus).

Of course, if you can find a good, intuitive button layout for the "toolbar" all of the said

above would become invalid.

Thanks for bringing us Evince!

On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 8:49 PM, Ernest Adrogué <nfdisco gmail com> wrote:

 7-10-2013, 16:15 (-0700); Germán Póo-Caamaño escriu:

> On Tue, 2013-10-08 at 00:51 +0200, Ernest Adrogué wrote:
> > 6-10-2013, 21:39 (+0100); Juanjo Marín escriu:
> > > The main purpose of this redesign is coherence with the GNOME desktop.
> >
> > That's what I supposed. Speaking as a user, I just can't see why anyone
> > would want to remove the menus from the menu bar and put them in the tool
> > bar.  From my point of view this change contributes nothing, and makes the
> > interface considerably worse.  Now the keyboard shortcuts for openning menus
> > don't work and things are harder to find because of the lack of text and
> > organisation.  Everything has been crammed into just two unlabelled
> > menus. Again, just my opinion as a user..
>
> You get more space for the document and less for the application.

Most applications let users hide/show the menu and tool bars at their
convenience.  In this case, with the new arrangement there is certainly a
little gain in vertical space.  In my opinion, absolutely not worth it.  I
understand that it's just my personal preference.  Then again a flexible UI
that can be adapted to suit different preferences is better than one that
can't.  I think we can all agree with that.

> The menu bookmarks was redundant and easier to access from the side pane
> (F9).

I agree.

> There are 2 button menus in the toolbar.  General (gear icon) and
> Document (wrench icon).
>
> The Document is a merge of the previous Edit and View, with the removal
> of Copy/Paste/Select were removed (still available via shortcuts and
> contextual menu).

Well, if I see Edit and View, I know what I can expect to find in there. If
I see a spanner and a gear, I am clueless.  A menu called "General" is
hardly informative, but still better than no name at all.  As for
consistency, I don't expect toolbar buttons to activate menus.  No other
button in the toolbar does this.  In fact I'd never seen it before.

> You can get access to the toolbar using Ctrl-Tab/Ctrl-Shift-Tab.  Also,
> using F10 you get access to the Gear menu. With F1 you open the help
> that explains how to use Evince.
>
> The accelerator (shortcuts) for all operations are still there.  Not
> having a shortcut for the wrench menu is a limitation that should be
> addressed sooner than later.

Yes, the accelerators are still there and underlined.  That is another
problem of not having text: there is nothing to underline and so the
shortcuts are not on display.

> The unlabeled buttons (lack of tooltips) in the toolbar correspond to a
> a bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700697
>
> Don't forget the project is run exclusively by volunteers in their spare
> time. Although some bugs looks straightforward to apply still might take
> some time.
>
> Certainly, more man power is always welcomed.

I understand this is volunteer project and I'm thankful to everyone who has
made Evince possible.  I've been using free software for more than 10 years
and have contributed to various projects here and there, although I'm not a
programmer.  In this case, I don't think there is much I can do to help,
except to give you my criticism of the new design.  Please don't take it
personally.

Cheers.
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