Right-justified help menu?

[Gregory Merchan <merchan baton phys lsu edu>]

Perhaps I'm a weirdo, but I expect to see the Help menu on the right of the
toolbar. I seem to recall that many nix people found this bizarre when Netscape did
it, but my recollection may be off.

My reasons are two:

1) Once I'm used to the app, I don't want to see a completely useless item
among useful items.

2) Having at least one right justified item has some aesthetic appeal since it
marks a boundary of the app.

I also seem to recall reading that placing a single item in isolation make it
easy to miss so that new users are effectively help-less.  As a remedy to this I
propose placing the settings item on the right as well. This is based on the
presumption that once a user has grown accustomed to certain settings, he is
unlikely to change them in the course of working. This makes the settings item useless
for much of the apps use.

Please note that this does not apply to applets which may change many times in
the course of the day to provide work utilities. (For example, I'll disable
GnomeICU when deep in thought, or auto-hide the panel when using few apps with few
windows.) A similar need for changing apps can be satisfied by the preferences
submenu. This can also provide for programmers a distinction between what should
be a setting and what should be a preference.

That's all for now,
Greg Merchan