Re: [Evolution-hackers] Thinking about menus

[Benjamin Kahn <xkahn ximian com>]

On Wed, 2005-01-12 at 08:27 +0800, Not Zed wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-01-11 at 16:52 -0500, Christine McLellan wrote:
> > Hey Ben -- More feedback, this time just a few comments on the
> > proposed Message menu:
> > 
> > Message / Reply -- I believe this should stay "Reply to All" to be
> > really clear.  The icons can be too small to quickly know which item
> > is which and mistakenly choose Reply to All when you meant just to
> > reply to a Sender could be a tad dangerous :).  
> > 
> > Message / Reply to Author -- I would keep "Reply to Sender" to be
> > more consistent w/ other mail apps (and as result more familiar).
> > If this is simply a forwarded message, who is the actual author? Not
> > trying to be a brat, but I can really imagine Author being
> > confusing.  
> rfc822 specifically defines 'sender', and 'from', and they needn't be
> the same.  It never talks about 'author', neither does any other known
> mail application.

	Well, it obviously can happen that the terminology in an RFC and the
terminology that users use can differ.  But in this case it doesn't make
sense to deviate from what we had before.  

> > What happened to Forward As>Attached, Quoted, Inline?  The
> > flexibility of choosing how to forward a particular message is
> > something I probably use once a week?
> This seems to be a major departure of definitely required
> functionality, all types are required.
> 
> While i'm here, the goto stuff must stay in the view menu.  It was
> moved there specifically to be consistent with the other components of
> evolution.

	The other components are being changed as well.

> Message->Mark as shouldn't be a submenu, its about the most often used
> set of items from the edit menu.

	Well, hopefully that'll come up in user testing if it's true.  I have
yet to observe people ever using the Mark menu items, however.  Also, if
they are so popular, shouldn't they have more hot keys?

> > On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 12:25 -0500, Benjamin Kahn wrote:  
> > > With Evolution 2.2 fast approaching with a new plugin architecture, I
> > > (along with Rodney and a bunch of other people) have been looking at the
> > > Evolution menus.  
> > > 
> > > We've started with with the mailer context menus and the main mailer
> > > menus.  This is needed because the current menus are a discouraging mess
> > > and with menu merging from plugins, things are only going to get
> > > worse.  
> > > 
> > > The goals are:
> > > 
> > >       * Get rid of the Actions menu.
> > >       * Make it obvious where to find things.  (Eliminate seeking as
> > >         much as possible)
> > >       * Make common operations available without using submenus.
> > >       * Move closer to the HIG recommendations.
> > >         ( http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/menus-standard.html )
> > >       * Provide a good structure for plugins to add new menu items.
> > >       * Umm...  And simplicity.  
> > > 
> > > I've posted screenshots of the effort to the Evolution Blog:
> > > http://codeblogs.ximian.com/blogs/evolution/archives/000441.html
> > > 
> > > The latest version of the glade mockup is here: (I'll try to keep this
> > > current)
> > > http://primates.ximian.com/~xkahn/evo-menus/evo-menus.tar.gz
> > > NOTE: Evolution does not use glade to create menus.  This is simply a
> > > mockup.  It will never be the official version.)
> > > 
> > > I am generating a patch for Evolution that uses the new menus.  I'm
> > > about 50% done.
> > > 
> > > And, obviously, a similar layout needs to be designed for the other
> > > components.  
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > evolution-hackers maillist  -  evolution-hackers lists ximian com
> > > http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
> -- 
> 
> Michael Zucchi <notzed ximian com>
> "Ride, Work, Sleep. Beer."
> Novell's Evolution and Free
> Software Developer