Re: [Usability] About Menu Items Proposal

["Corey Burger" <corey burger gmail com>]

On 10/12/06, Steven Garrity <stevelist silverorange com> wrote:
> As it stands, most Gnome desktops have two About items on the
> System/Desktop menu. One is About Gnome, the other is About
> [Distro-name] (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.).
>
> Two menu items for such infrequently accessed, but necessary,
> information seems unnecessary.
>
> I would like to propose these two menu items be merged into one "About
> this Computer" menu item. Under this item, both the Gnome information
> *and* the distro-specific information would be shown.
>
> I'm not sure how best to show both Gnome and Distro info in one window
> would be. It could be a split screen, show one by default with a button
> for the other, or have tabs, like we do for "Written by" and "Translated
> by" in the Credits box in many apps.
>
> Merging these could items together would make a frequently used menu
> (also contains Shutdown, Logout, Help, etc.) one item smaller, and
> hence, a little bit easier to use.
>
>
> I have also posted this proposal on the wiki for people to add
> links/info/comments/issues:
> http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityTeam/AboutMenuItems
>
> So, does it make any sense?

Yes, this makes a great deal of sense. However, there are two issues
that I see. The first is, what do distros think abou this? Do they
feel that the about dialog is good branding? Second, a better term
than About this Computer needs to be found. After all, the dialog is
about *some* of the software on this machine, not the computer itself.

Corey