Re: Menus

[gelderk natlab research philips com]

> Hmmm, you do suggest an interesting possibility: allowing the user to change
> the ordering of his/her menus.  How much power should we allow here?
> Should we allow the user to totally (i.e. hopelessly) scramble his
> menus into any order he chooses?

Sure, why not? A user will do that once, then think its stupid to
change it all, restore some default and change the useful stuff.

> [The altered menu order would have to be saved in ~/.gnome, of course.]

Somewhere there, I guess :-)

> Is that more dangerous than helpful? 

May be. If so, there should be a novice/expert setting in the
configuration, such that a novice can not screw up too much (side-step
to another thread ``Meeting the needs of users'': this would fit into
the novice-guide-around versus expert-can-do-all for applications;
which is definitely a good idea).

> If so, should it be restricted to reordering the top-level menus
> only? Or should the menu items be fair game, too? Should we restrict
> menu item changes to a special menu (e.g. a "Tools" or "User" menu?)
> that exists specifically for user control?

Preferably no restrictions. That results in easier implementation and
no user-questions like ``why can't I do this, while I can do that?''
Specifically, there is danger it would introduce inconsistencies from
application to application.

It also means that applications will need to add new items to the
configuration when they have (sub)menu entries which exist only in
that particular application. [With its own defaults, part of which is
reset because of global configuration, part not. It's going to be a
difficult configuration...]

> I dunno.  Most of this was kicked around months ago, but I don't
> think anything was decided on.  I could be wrong.

Hm. I could try to work this out in more detail. I am a computer
scientist, but not a UI-expert, so I will need feedback. At least I'll
delve into the mailing-list history, to see what I can find on this
subject (trying to avoid the flame-wars; how come that emotions turn
high when the ``feel'' of look'n'feel is discussed?)

+--- Kero ------------------ kero@dds.nl ---+
| I ain't changed,                          |
| but I know I ain't the same               |
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