Re: Menu items with icons

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

James Michael Mastros wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Aug 11, 1998 at 02:01:43 AM -0500, John R Sheets wrote:
> > Well, the current idea behind the foot menu is that it would hold
> > operations that work on an application-level scope.  Things like Exit,
> > About, and Preferences (assuming application-level preferences).  Those
> > are the only commonly-agreed-upon items.  Other proposals have included
> > moving Help there (countered by the argument that Help should always be a
> > very obvious top-level menu item).
> 
> Umm... if it holds app-level items, then why a desktop-suite level icon?
> Wouldn't using the icon of the app make more sense?  (Except that the WM
> might want that for it's app-level menu, like the Win95 WM.)  How about the
> string "Application"?

Yeah, good point.  That argument did come up.  However, it was
concluded that having a different clickable icon for every single
GNOME app (and what if an app doesn't even have an associated
icon?) would be even more confusing for the end user.  So yes,
it's a small conceptual compromise.  There's also the consistency
thing, where users are already trained to click on foot icons for
menus, from using the panel.  It's just a foot icon in a
different place.  (c:

The word "Application" was too long for many people as a required
menu entry, especially with smaller apps who may not have much
menu bar width to use.  "App" was discarded because it would be a
bad precedent to start using abbrev. in menus.  I think "Program"
is the currently-preferred choice (on the gui-list).  Always open
to more suggestions, tho.

> > The most prevalent reasoning behind the foot menu has been 1) good GNOME
> > branding, through the foot icon (with a configurable option to change it
> > to straight text, "GNOME", or "Program", or something like that), and
> I don't like the concept of "GNOME branding".  I think that users shouldn't
> be forced to think about weather or not their apps are GNOME apps.

Yep.  You'll have to be able to turn it off.  Whether or not
this'll be the default...  Who knows.

John