Re: [Usability] [Ayatana] The Future of Window Borders, Menu Bars, and More

[Allan Caeg <allancaeg gmail com>]

Here's Alex Faaborg's view on Firefox menu on the toolbar and the menu that Ryan Peters suggested

the app menu looks like it is exactly the type of control we are interested in having (both for our own use, and because we think it is a good direction for the general design of desktop applications).

To answer Mark Shuttleworth's question:

Allan, I haven't followed the Firefox usability and design discussion
around the Firefox Button, but can you tell us if there will be an
option to expose the button/menu off a button in the toolbar next to the
URL, as it is in Chrome? That would be most straightforwardly compatible
with our direction.

Mark

We are trying to differentiate between browser level commands and commands on the particular Web application.  Since the browser is itself a platform, we want to draw a clear separation, both visually and interactively.  For instance in these mockups the Firefox application button appears on the browser background layer while the tabs containing different Web applications appear in the foreground of the application:

https://bug572482.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=451656

An additional reason for us to avoid placing the browser level commands on the navigation toolbar is that App Tabs (small persistent tabs on the far left side of the tab strip) may not have a toolbar, or may even choose to expose their own native toolbar using HTML5. (example: http://people.mozilla.com/~faaborg/files/20100625-tabsOnTop/appTabHypotheticalMapApp.png ) Also note in this example how the app button is placed on the glass background layer.

For the more general case of desktop applications that are not themselves a platform, we think the app menu is a great control because it merges the name of the application and top level commands into a single widget.  Despite not being standard control on Windows, we are seeing this design get some pickup from other applications as well, most recently with the popular instant messenger Trillian: http://www.trillian.im/learn/tour-trillian5.html

Shaun, that sounds cool :)

On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 2:01 AM, Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:

On Fri, 2010-08-06 at 11:15 -0500, Ryan Peters wrote:
> > > Help, Check for Updates, and About, that affect the entire program,
> > > meaning every open window.
> > "About" is a fair example. But "Help" should be context-sensitive
> > whenever possible -- showing help relevant to the window you choose it
> > from.
> Maybe that could be implemented. The Help option now would simply open
> the standard help menu for the application at the beginning.
> Context-sensitiveness could be possible, thought I don't know how the
> GNOME devs feel about it.

We have a project underway to provide more dynamic and relevant
help buttons, menus, and other controls. We could probably find
ways to bring some of that to the application menu. Ping me if
you're interested.

--
Shaun

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Regards,
Allan
http://www.google.com/profiles/AllanCaeg#about

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