GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 155449
Restructure of Menu Applets
Last modified: 2004-12-23 07:34:06 UTC
My idea is basically this: Merge the Menu Bar/Main Menu applets together. The resulting applet should act like the "menu bar" when it in either a panel located at the top of the screen or a floating panel. If it is in a panel on either side or the bottom, it should act like the "main menu." This would get rid of the confusion between the two applets, and it would prevent the awquardness of having a "menu bar" on one of the sides (it looks VERY strange, and generally makes the experience of the user very bad). Other information:
This is not a bad idea. I think we should keep the Main Menu applet anyway (if someone wants to put a main menu button on a horizontal panel, for instance) - but changing the Menu Bar in a button when you put the applet on a vertical panel would make a lot of sense. The Menu Bar is useless on a vertical panel right now...
Created attachment 32710 [details] What a menu applet should look like when in a panel that's located at the top of the screen.
Created attachment 32711 [details] What a menu applet should look like when in a panel that's located on the left part of the screen.
Created attachment 32712 [details] What a menu applet should look like when in a panel that's located on the right part of the screen.
Created attachment 32713 [details] What a menu applet should look like when in a panel that's located at the bottom of the screen.
All of this should happen automatically, so the user doesn't have to think about what a menu bar or a main menu applet is. The behavior of the applet should match the possition of the panel, so the user only deals with the panel, not removing and adding applets when he/she wants to move a panel. (BTW, I'm sorry about my lame bugzilla skills.)
These are in panel, not gnome-applets.
Could be confusing... cc'ing usability people for input.
I don't see why it should change into an icon when at the bottom. About confusion; most distros position the menu at the top or bottom, so I don't see any immediate confusion for users here. And, once they try to move it, they'll quickly recognize the icon (and they'll also recognize it because it occupies the "same place" as it did before).
My only concern (the whole reason I brought this up) is that it does <a href="http://homepages.wmich.edu/~c4gore/Screenshot.png">this</a> when a side panel has a "Menu Bar" instead of a "Main Menu" in it. Isn't this a problem?
Again, I'm sorry for my lame buzilla skills.
Dan: this is indeed a problem. I don't think your solution is the right way to fix it, though (note that I'm no usability expert :-)). See bug #155549 for this.
We have rotated text in pango now, I think we should use this to turn the menu text in the proper orientation instead of changing the look and use of the menu completely.
I agree. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 141702 ***