Re: FAQ in postscript; aieee!

[Jochem Huhmann <joh unidui uni-duisburg de>]

On Tue, 24 Nov 1998 13:29:11 +0100 bagfors@hpc2n.umu.se wrote:

> looking at the screenshot at
> http://home.sprintmail.com/~mhanni/gstep-desktop-981021.jpg you will see that they have next-step-like menues.  However it doesn't seam like they have a global menu that changes depending on which program is in focus.  
> 
> Having one next-lookalike menu for gnome-programs and one that works in another way for gnustep programs and another way for other programs might get VERY confusing :)

IMHO a complete new style of menus is a really bad thing, if it would
only work with one toolkit (Gnome, Gtk, GNUstep, whatever). I can
imagine a typical Linux desktop in the near future, where users mix
Gnome-, KDE- and GNUstep apps. They should share as most ressources as
possible and such menu-things are surely one of these ressources. A
screen with a mac-like menu bar for some apps, a *step-like floating
menu for some other apps and a few windows with their own menus inside
them is surely not what users would be happy with.

> Otherwise I really like this idea :)

The Right Thing would be a protocol and a kind of menu-server or
menu-manager, that handles menus for every app that asks for it. If the
protocol is fixed, this menu manager could be written with Gtk/Gnome or
Qt/KDE or GNUstep or Motif or tcl/tk and the calling app couldn't even
tell the difference. Menus (and toolbars) are quite limited GUI-wise, 
they just need to display some text or images, sub-menus, radio-buttons 
and shortcuts. All this could be expressed in a quite simple protocol, 
or am I completely wrong?


	Jochem
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