Re: [Usability] New way of accessing software (WAS: Re: Big Panel menus (32x32))

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Fri, 2003-06-13 at 11:10, Janne wrote:

> One way might be to mirror the "recent files" mechanism: have an area at
> the bottom of the main menu with room for, say four to six apps, and set
> the most recently used apps there - without altering the menu content
> itself. That way the menu structure itself remains static and
> predictable. 

There was some discussion about doing this here:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-September/msg00053.html
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93350

I agree (as I said then) that it would probably have to go at the top
level of the main menu.  I don't think putting it in a submenu like we
do with "Recent Documents" would give noticeably quicker access than if
the app you wanted to run wasn't on the list.

> And since we aren't touching them, it's fine to experiment
> with statistics to show the most recently - and heavily - used apps, so
> a one-off usage of some app won't push away an app that is being used
> all the time.

XP also lets you 'pin' particular apps to this list, so they never get
pushed off.  It's kind of a hidden feature the way they do it, though.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems