Re: Reprise of the panel layout proposal

[Arcterex <alan ufies org>]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 05:05:02AM +0000, Rami Valta wrote:
> On 20 Jun 2001 16:15:43 -0700, James Ramsey wrote:
> 
> > Menu Panel
> > ==========
> > 
> > **Detailed description of the menu panel**
> > 
> > The menu panel would have only two items: a menu
> > labeled the "Main Menu" at the left end, and a menu
> > labeled "Running Tasks" at the right end. 
> 
> This approach would waste quite amount of screen real estate.

Could there be a way to indicate to users that the rest of the panel can be
populated with applets, gizmos, and other neat&cool stuff? (assuming that it
can be).

> > Further, having the "Running Tasks" menu have an entry
> > when there are no running tasks, rather than be
> > totally
> > empty when there are no running tasks (as it is now),
> > is because 1) an empty menu is nearly invisible, so
> > that a user might click on an empty "Running Tasks"
> > menu and conclude that the menu does nothing or is
> > broken 2) an empty menu looks wrong or broken, so that
> > users who click on an empty "Running Tasks" menu and
> > *do* see the speck of an empty menu might conclude
> > that the menu is broken.
> 
> Display "No running tasks right now" in the panel itself, and make it
> gray so that it looks like it's disabled?

If the panel can have other items in it then this label would have to not
change the positioning of other items.  People get used to things being
accessed in one place and if one of the menu items is constantly changing
width, their icons are going to be in inconsistant positions (again, assuming
that the panel can have other items put on it as it can now).

--
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