Re: idea: special menuitem in MenuBar of each gnome application

[Vlad Harchev <hvv hippo ru>]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Lee Mallabone wrote:

> 
> Alan Shutko wrote:
> > 
> > So?  Most people don't change their Word setup, but my wife can't live
> > without her custom setup (which makes it easier to take notes in class
> > on her laptop).  That's my _point_!  Most people may not need it, but
> > some people really need it.  If we leave it up to app developers, they
> > may be like you and decide that few enough people would use it that
> > it's not worth the hassle.
> 
> I agree that in larger applications it can be a fundamentally useful
> thing to do, but I'm questioning the usefulness of implementing such a
> solution and then expecting it to fit seemlessly on an every-app basis.
> Maybe not so much the usefulness actually; it's more that I think the
> benefits don't out-weigh the effort required to do this really well.

 As for fitting seamlessly - I think there is nothing to worry about - the
presence of such menuitem won't break anything. It may just be inconvenient to
some options that are meant for configuring UI aspects not relevant to some 
app. But it won't break anything.

> > Sure, I can edit the source, but should I really have to edit the
> > source for this kind of thing? 
> 
> If you *really* want to change a user interface in a lot of the modern
> Gnome apps, you can just fire up glade and edit the app's GUI visually.
> You have to be careful not to change too many fundamental elements
> though or the application may break. 

 By editing .glade files it will be impossible to configure user interface
aspects of libgnomeui (that are configured via gnomecc). E.g. whether to show
button titles on toolbar (for example, you turn them off in gnomecc by
default, but want to see toolbar button titles in only one app you are new to
to study what the buttons mean). Or, when appbar (advanced statusline that can
interact with user - ask questions, etc) will be implemented properly my
gnomelibs, you may want to enable appbar for some apps for which it's useful
and disable for all others.

 Of course there could be a gnomecc applet that will configure what entries
that menu will have :) - then user will be able to turn off user interface
customization items in that menu (and that may be sane default).

 I think that choice and flexibility is much more important than consistency
(and in our case, there is a set of options' values that make UI of all
apps consistent).
 
> Regards,
> 
> Lee.

 Best regards,
  -Vlad