Re: AppMenu design feedback

[Gabriel Rossetti <gabriel rossetti trafigura com>]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:37 PM, Sam Bull <sam hacking sent com> wrote:

On Fri, 2013-02-22 at 12:06 +0000, Gabriel Rossetti wrote:
> I find the AppMenu counter-productive, confusing (why have menus in
> two different places?) and it breaks the sloppy mouse focus (you can't
> access the AppMenu since it changes when the mouse goes over another
> window when you try and access it).

In 3.6, sloppy focus has a short delay, so if you flick the cursor to
the top of the screen, it won't change focus and the menu works just
fine.

The AppMenu seems like a nice idea to remove the menu bar from
applications that only use it for a couple of trivial menu items (like
preferences and quit).
        But, it can be confusing when an application actually chooses to split
menu items between the two places (e.g. Devhelp). I think applications
should choose one option or the other, and never use both menus.
        I don't think it's confusing if only one is used. If there is no menu
bar on the application, then it is obvious that any additional options
will be on the AppMenu.
--
Sam Bull
Twitter/Identi.ca: @sambull

Thanks Sam, I wasn't aware,  it was fixed.

Yes, agreed, that is basically the same idea as what I wrote. I may have expressed myself in a wrong manner, what I meant by "confusing" is that it is confusing if the app has both the AppMenu and the normal Menu bar, if it has one or the other ALL THE TIME it is ok. I stress that it must be one or the other, switchable by a user setting (I could care less what the default is as long as you can change it) and be consistent,. That last point is because nothing is worst than having inconsistent ways of doing things.

Currently, to have it switchable you need someone to code an extension (which is why I wrote it) and maintain it (which I have to do to update it to 3.6, I know :-)), and it's confusing because the options are split into the AppMenu AND the menu bar (if it has one) if you decide not to use the extension.

Gabriel