Re: Micro$oft-style dragable, resizable, stackable menu/button bars.

["Ben FrantzDale" <frantb rpi edu>]

> Hi,
>
> One of the nice UI elements Micro$oft has come up with
> is the menubar/buttonbar UI class that enables dragging,
> resizing and stacking of menu/buttonbars.
>
> These bars were initially implemented and used in IE 4.0.
> As soon as I saw them, I thought "that's how menu and
> buttonbars should always work!"
>
> Netscape has its expanding and contracting bars, but they
> aren't nearly as nice to use.  For example, you can't
> stack and resize bars.  You can reorder them vertically,
> but they always run the width of the window.  They can't
> share a single row with another bar.  Micro$oft's bars
> even allow a user to drag bars on a shared row to reorder
> the bars in the row.
>
> In IE and some of M$'s other software, clicking on the
> lower edge of a buttonbar and dragging the edge up or
> down causes the text under the buttons to be displayed
> or hidden.  I really like this feature.
>
> This cannot be rocket science.  I am amazed that this
> functionality isn't in Gnome already.  This is an area
> where Gnome is running behind Micro$oft in usability.
>
> Let's get this in and take another hunk out of M$'s
> desktop usability lead.
>
> Miles

Yes, Gnome has the beginnings of this sort of system but the ability to have
menus on the same row as buttons just by draging is very usefull. There is a
huge savings of screen space just for starters. I've been hoping Gnome would
implement this.

On a related note, having easily configurable button bars should also be a
priority. MS's way of doing that may not be the best but it's a start.

--Ben