Re: gtk-menu-popup-delay

["Kalle Vahlman" <kalle vahlman gmail com>]

2006/6/30, Mark Howard <mh tildemh com>:
> On 6/30/06, Kalle Vahlman <kalle vahlman gmail com> wrote:
> > Also if you pop up the submenus instantly, it'll try to open/close all
> > the submenus when you click and move your mouse to the one you want.
> > This will have really ugly effects if you need to pull the mouse down
> > through the whole menu full of submenus (as panel menus usually are).
>
> Why do you think this is ugly?
> In my test environment, I open the panel menu and move down over each
> item. The menus respond immediately opening each item as I move over
> it.

You obviously have some great hardware and a red hot cache of the menu
item images if it indeed responds immediately. Also, why would I want
to see the submenus that I don't care about at that time?

> When I reach the item I'm interested in it opens immediately open
> so I can go straight to the application I'm looking for. The submenus
> don't get in the way of the current menu, so do not interrupt my
> actions.

They do get in the way if it takes time to make it disappear and show
the menus. Even if it didn't, the flashing submenus are distracting
and showing them is really just unneccessary work that should be
avoided.

> With the current 1/4s delays, some menus will popup when you're moving
> through the list

Maybe it should be increased then ;)

> then  when you reach the item you have to wait 1/4s
> before it opens. This feels like gnome is too slow to open the menus
> so you're working too fast for your computer to keep up -- even with
> something as simple as opening the menu. Such comments seem to be what
> many of the users who complain about the performance are saying. They
> don't know that there is an intentional delay, so really do think that
> gnome is too slow to

I think the comments on menu slowness are mostly due to the first
time-openings when icons need to be looked up and items constructed
(visually). This is not fixed by removing the delay. Also, the delay
is good for keyboard movement too.

> It would be good to see how normal users would compare the current
> behaviour and the panel with a delay of 0.

Get some users to test it then! ;)

I think this topic would be better for the usability list, since the
delay indeed is implemented for usability reasons and is not really a
question of performance.

--
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi
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