GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 331459
review definition of 'Main menu' term and give panel menu objects distinct names
Last modified: 2013-10-26 11:19:48 UTC
I've been working under the assumption that "main menu" means the thing that's along to top panel that looks like this: *foot* Applications Places Desktop However, a close look at the older parts of the user guide and the rather vague definition of the term in the Style Guide leads me to believe it's actually the single foot icon that when clicked produces a menu that's a combination of all the applications categories, then Places, Desktop, and finally log out / shut down. This single icon menu is no longer on the panel by default. (Though it's still available as a panel object.) I would suggest the term 'Main menu' is better used for the "Applications Places Desktop" menu, since that's something users are far more likely to see. Both applets would also need renaming to match this change in the Style Guide.
In fact, the style guide doesn't seem to have a term for the " *foot* Applications Places Desktop" menu bar.
See also http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2006-March/msg00072.html
In my application documentation, I refer to it as the "Gnome Menu". Or, to specifically refer to the subset of those menus that contains application launchers, I call it the "Gnome Applications Menu" (The other sections can be called "Gnome Desktop Menu" and "Gnome Places Menu"). I think this terminology fits either the normal form, or the more compact applet (just the foot icon).
Now the "Desktop" menu of the panel menubar is called "System", that frees up the term. I suggest: - "Desktop Menubar" for the panel menubar: it's not distro-specific, and it's clearly a menubar that sits above the whole desktop. - "GNOME Menu" for the single foot menu. It's not installed in stock gnome, so our documentation doesn't refer to it (only in the list of things you can put on a panel).
Oh, except that the single foot menu isn't necessarily a foot. Ubuntu changes it to an Ubuntu logo for example. (Thank you, 'OSS means choice'. *sigh*)
GNOME itself calls it a "Menu Bar".
Looks like fixed as of 2.20
Not at all. Help for the main menubar says on its first page: > Using the Main Menubar > This chapter describes how to use the GNOME Panel Menubar. So that's two terms for it already. And the 'Add to panel' dialog still had the old names.
The style guide has not been maintained (and there have not been releases of it any time recently). A new one may be written in the future and that will use the terminology which is current at the time.