GNOME 2.0 Menu design

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

Nils,

Here are some eclectic thoughts about the current menu proposal. These
are a grab bag, so take what's useful and ignore the rest. :-) I'm
generally formatting things as "Current Text" -> "Suggested Text". It
would be wonderful if we could get you hooked up with a CVS account so
we could do convenient things like submitting patches rather than
laboriously formatting things in evolution? eh? ;-)

BTW, I'm operating under the assumption that the items in the (...) will
be part of the label. It seems useful for having a simple method for
differentiating things like, say, web browsers (where there are a few
different web browsers that could be in the menu).

> GNOME 2.0 Programs Menu (foot menu)

I think GNOME has been slowly moving to using "Application" rather than
"Program". Perhaps the HIG team should make a decision on this.

> Internet Web Browser (Mozilla X.X) (Netscape/Mozilla browser) 
> [Use to browse the Internet or local html documents] 

Mozilla X.X -> Mozilla

Why would we put version numbers here? I hope we're not suggesting that
multiple versions of the same application should be installed at once.
Otherwise it seems a little pointless...

> Mail (Evolution X.X) (Evolution) 
> [Read and send email, manage tasks, contacts, and calendars]

Mail -> E-Mail
Evolution X.X -> Evolution

I suggest that the evolution team provide a "command line" mechanism for
launching Evolution in all its various major modes (as an e-mail client,
task list, contact manager, and calendar). This way we can put seperate
entries into the menus (since evolution is several programs packaged
into one to provide tight integration).

> Sound Recorder (Sound recorder) [Record voice messages]

This isn't limited to "voice messages". I don't even know if anyone uses
it for that.

"Record voice messages" -> "Record short sound clips"

> Volume Meter (ESD Volume Meter) [Adjust the volume of your speakers]

Volume Meter -> Volume Monitor

"Adjust the volume..." -> "Monitor the volume level output from your
computer"

> Calendar [Keep track of appointments] 

Change to "Calendar (Evolution) [Keep ...]"
Since we're already assuming Evolution will be a defacto install with
GNOME (for the E-mail client) we might as well use its calendar and
deprecate the other.

> Finance Manager (Gnucash Finance Manager) 

(Gnu...ger) -> (Gnucash)

> Image Editor (GIMP X.X) (GIMP) 
> [Create and edit images] 

GIMP X.X -> GIMP

"Create and edit images" -> "Retouch photographs or create new images"

> Postscript/PDF Viewer (GNOME Ghostview) 
> [View Postscript and Portable Document Format (PDF) files] 

"Postscript/PDF" -> "PDF & Postscript"
"[View ... Portable Document Format (PDF) files]" -> [View Postscript
and PDF files]

> Calculator (Simple Calculator) [Perform simple arithmetic functions] 

Lose the "(Simple Calculator)" part

[Perform...functions] -> "[Perform simple calculations]" (the current
tooltip is, I think, more confusing than it would be helpful...pretty
much everyone knows what a calculator is).

Dictionary (GDict) [An online dictionary]

> Character Map (GNOME Character Map) 
> [Shows special characters and allows you to copy them into documents]

Lose the "(GNOME Character Map)" part.

> Startup Hint [Browse through the GNOME Startup Hints]

Should this even be in the menus? I mean, I'm sure that the startup
hints programmer was really proud of his program and wanted to maximize
its use...but... <shrug> I vote we remove this from the menus.

Bug Report Tool [File bugs on GNOME] 

[...] -> [Report any problems you encounter with GNOME]

> Font Selector(not sure of the usefulness of this one - removed from
> GNOME 2.0? - alternatively it could go under developer tools?) 

Lets kill it.

> Text File Viewer (removed from GNOME 2.0?) 

kill this too.

> Interface Designer (Glade) [Easily create GTK 2.0 based 
> user interfaces] 

[...] -> [Easily create user interfaces for your applications]

Games

> Desktop Settings (GNOME Control Center) Change your desktop look
> and behavior] (invokes Nautlius or stand-alone CC) 

I think we should keep this as a menu. Given that we have (and I agree
with this) lost the extremely prominent "Settings" menu from the panel
itself...I think the preferences section should be as obvious as
possible. Esp. given that the new CC will launch each preferences pane
as a seperate window not an interface shifting monolith.

> System Terminal (GNOME Terminal) [A window with a command prompt 
> so you can type in Unix commands] 

I don't like the description, but I can't think of a better one.

> System Monitor (System monitor) [View the processes, memory and
> file system information of your computer] 

This is deprecated in GNOME 1.4.1 and is replaced with "Process Manager"
(may be renamed...any suggestions?). Process manager is more like the
CTL-ALT-DEL dialogue in Windows95 then the large nebulous mass it
replaces.

"Process Manager (procman) [View and kill running applications or other
processes]" might be one way to describe it. I prefer we lose the name
process, as that seems like techno-babble.

> Performance Plotter (Stripchart Plotter) [Graph certain 
> system attributes over time]

[Graph...] -> [Plot...]

> File Sytem Usage (GNOME DiskFree) [A graphical view of file
> system usage] 

[...] -> "View disk usage"

Cheers,

-Seth