Re: Menu Premise (was Re: tmfkap, File, &c)

[John R Sheets <dusk smsi-roman com>]

Scott Goehring wrote:
> 
> John> Makes sense.  Know of any other approaches to menu layout?
> 
> Random? :)

I like it.  Problem solved.  Now on to window managers...  (c;
 
> John> Do we dare consider a configureable option to switch between the
> John> two?  Click a checkbox and you're in Task Menu mode...click it
> John> again and you're in Scope-menu mode.  Make it a GNOME-wide
> John> default, overridable on the application level.
> 
> This is an interesting idea, but it would double the work for
> programmers (we'd have to assign each menu item to two different menu
> placements, instead of just one).  Don't count on compliance. :)

Well, no.  It would certainly be unworkable that way.  I was
actually thinking more along the lines of something analogous to
the keybinding issue.  GNOME would define a set of standard menu
item commands.  Something like:

GNOME_FILE_NEW
GNOME_FILE_OPEN
GNOME_FILE_CLOSE
GNOME_PRINT
GNOME_PROPERTIES
GNOME_CUT
GNOME_PASTE
GNOME_COPY
GNOME_HELP
GNOME_ABOUT

Then, through menu themes, you could set up different
arrangements to your heart's content.  Perhaps GNOME would have
two or more hard-coded themes, e.g. Task-oriented, Scope-oriented
(but called something better), etc., that would snap you
instantly back to something sane.

Since the menu items are abstracted, you could change the text to
whatever you wanted in the theme file.

The only dangerous wrinkle (aside from configuration overload) is
all those menus (60%+) that are unique to the application.  Where
do you put those?  Well, I guess if they're all in the default
theme files (with good comments), the theme writers could figure
it out.  Um, errrr, you'd really want a GUI interface for this,
wouldn't you?  Same thing.

I suppose the programmer would have to setup the default
locations of each menu so the app knows where to put them if
they're not in the theme file.  If it's well-implemented, by
default the changing theme would affect only GNOME-specific menu
items.  If the programmer does nothing, changing the theme would
leave the unique menus alone, while pulling the switcheroo on the
GNOME menus.

Actually, if it's well-implemented, all this would be clear &
easy for the programmer.  And besides, menu themes would be a GC3
(optional) feature, well off the beaten path.

John