Re: New Menus for Windows: Interface Analysis (II)

[Gleef <gleef capital net>]

On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn wrote:
> 
> 	Sorry about the weird URLs.  Here's the right way to do it.
> 
> -----------------------
> 
> 	New Menus for Windows is a program which gives Windows 3.11 a new
> user interface.  It can act either alone, or with Program Manager/Task
> Manager running.  It's stated goal is to make Windows more "UNIX like."
> I really like the interface, and think it has a lot to offer, so I created
> a number of screen shots of the interface in action.  You can find them
> at:
> 
> 	http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/

Nice stuff, I certainly wish I had access to a program like this back when
I was using Windows 3.11.


> 	This message has comments to go along with what you're seeing.
> 
> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw1.gif: The beginning desktop.
> Notice that this is shareware, so you get a little nag tag on the bottom
> of the screen.
> 	In the lower left hand corner is the icon of New Menus (NMFW).  
> Clicking on this icon will get you help, an about box, the customize
> screen, etc.  
> 	In the upper right is the virtual desktop.  It can be made any
> size, and have any number of screens.  Icons and programs appear on the
> desktop, and a program can be between screens.  If an application is
> dragged to a new location, all its children window follow.

This stuff really should be handled by the Window Manager.


> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw2.gif: The popup menu.  This is
> a menu which appears when you right click the desktop.  This menu is
> completely editable through text files AND a menu editor (which we will
> see later.)

This bit looks like a replacement for progman.exe, right?  Most of this
stuff looks like its in the purview of Panel.  I like a lot of what I see
here.


> 	Notice the menu history. This lists the last 10 (or so)
> items you most recently selected.

I like this.  Many people won't care, and many people will want to kill it
before someone sees what they've done, but this could be a useful feature
to implement, as long as it could be disabled.


> 	Printers is a list of all configured printers.  One is
> highlighted, and that is the currently selected printer.

This could be interesting to implement with /etc/printcap.  I'm not sure
how well it can work, but if it can work well, this would be good.


> 	Progman is a dynamic menu of all the program manager folders.
> (Start menu anyone?)

Good feature, mostly handled in Panel, although I am sure it can be
improved upon.


> 	Drives is a menu of all available drives and their folders and
> files. Only executable files will be listed, although files with
> associations will be listed as well.

Yeek!  I wouldn't want to see this implemented with a Unix file system and
mailcap, too overwhelming to be useful.


> 	The task item is a menu listing all the running aplications.  This
> menu can be found directly by pressing Ctrl-Esc.  (Or Ctrl-Alt-T, I
> think.)  Selected tasks in this menu are hidden.

Usually handled by the window manager.  Could also be handled effectively
by GNOME.



> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw3.gif: A sample of the popup
> menu expanded out.
> 	Selecting the title bar of any of the menus will stick the menu to
> the desktop.  This will be shown later.

Nice, I like the fact that the entries seem user-ordered rather than
alphabetised.


 
> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw4.gif: A sample application
> with a context sensitive menu. Notice that because notepad is a widget,
> all text entry boxes will have this menu.  This menu, like all the other
> menus can be obtained by right clicking.

Context sensitive right-click menus can be very very useful.  However, the
application would need the ability to override the widget's right-click
menu for right-click functionality of its own (either a menu or something
else).


 
> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw5.gif: Normal menus are still
> possible, but...
> 
> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw6.gif: Right clicking on menus
> gets an improved version. Notice that this menu is stuck to the
> application.  The little arrow on the upper right hand side of the menu is
> a window shade button.  This will be demonstrated later.

Are you saying that these menus are pinable?  And windowshadable?  I like
it.  I definately want to see pinable menus implemented.  Windowshading
would be an extra plus for such menus.


> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw7.gif: The same application
> with all of its menus detached. I forgot to mention that clicking on the
> pixmap in the upper left hand corner once will stick the menu onto all
> desktops, and clicking it again will close the menu.

I believe sticky is one of the required hints to the window managers, so
this should be easy to implement.


> 	The menus all have a popup menu as well, which can be obtained by
> right clicking on them.  This menu allows you to edit items on it, for
> example.  

Wheeee....:-)  I don't know how well this would work for application
menus.  The panel gnomeprint menu should certainly be highly customizable.


> 	But the interesting thing about these menus is...
> 
> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw8.gif: If another application
> gets focus, the menus all disappear.

Nice for Win 3.1, but it can get distracting and slow X down if you have
focus-follows-mouse or sloppy-focus.


> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw9.gif: This is the menu
> configuration tool editing the Main Menu. Switching menus is done through
> the Submenu pull down.  Oddly, the button panel on the right hand side of
> this dialog is for editing all aspects of NMFW.

I like it.


> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw10.gif: An example of a single
> menu displayed multiple times. One menu is rolled up.  All menus appear on
> the virtual desktop.

Nice.


> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw11.gif: Right clicking on an
> icon, or an application's title bar will get you something similar to this
> menu.  Notice that functions like "Back" are not available normally under
> Windows.  The task manager is available in this window.

This probably needs to be left to the Window Manager.


> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw12.gif: This is the editor for
> editing a menu item. Notice the hotkey editor.

I don't think we can implement system-wide application hotkeys like
Windows does.  AFAIK, the only program that can intercept all keys is the
Window Manager, and by doing this it will happily break applications.

Perhaps some system for key binding communication can be discussed as a
potential WM requirement?

 
> http://www.cybersites.com/~xkahn/gnome/nmfw13.gif: These are all the menus
> available under "Window Manager" off the Main menu.
> 	The Wins desktop menu is is the part of the program which acts
> like the gnome session manager.  
> 	The SwitchtoScreen menu is an alternative way of navigating the
> virtual desktop, while the Vscreen menu item enables/disables the virtual
> desktop.  If it is disabled, all applications are moved to the same
> screen.  
> 	Kill is a UNIX like kill function.  It can actually kill a crashed
> application.  (Even when the normal Windows kill function can't.)  

Very nice stuff, I really wish I had this when I was using Windows 3.11.


> 	And that's it!  Enjoy!  I would recommend that we copy many of the
> features of this application.  It's VERY easy to teach.  It's very
> powerful to use.  Oh!  And I forgot to mention that it is completely
> scriptable.  (But that's only possible by editing text files.)

See if you can convince the author to GPL the source ;-).


-Gleef