GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 540687
view - blanked out option
Last modified: 2012-04-02 20:34:05 UTC
Please describe the problem: In the 'View' menu an option 'side pane' with the shortcut 'ctrl F9' is offered but greyed out. no information is found about it in the documentation. Is it not part of the application anymore (in which case it should be removed) or can it be installed in some way (in which case a hint in the documentation would be helpful)? Steps to reproduce: 1. Go to 'View' Actual results: You see the error Expected results: be able to use 'side pane' or not see it Does this happen every time? yes Other information:
That item is intended to enable/disable the sidepane, which exists, but it's currently not used. The idea of the sidepane is to be used by plugins; one plugin using the sidepane is enough for that option not to be grayed out.
I think the item should not be showed unless some activated plugin be in need of it. The actual way is bad ui.
(In reply to comment #2) > I think the item should not be showed unless some activated plugin be in need > of it. The actual way is bad ui. > HIG doesn't like that[1]: "Do not add or remove individual menu items while the application is running, make them insensitive instead. Entire menus may be added or removed from the menubar at runtime, however, for example in component-based applications." Although we weaken this for the plugins already. I think the actual problem is that many people still associate the menu item with the previous sidebar functionality. Additionally we haven't updated the help manual yet, which still talks about EXIF data in the sidepane. [1]: http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/2.22/menus-types.html.en
Given that we already add/remove items during runtime because of plugins, I think we should bend a little this and remove the menuitem. This way, we solve half of the problem. The other half would be to update the manual.
This has pretty much resolved itself now as the metadata sidebar in 3.4 prevents the menu entry from becoming insensitive. --- This problem has been fixed in our software repository. The fix will go into the next software release. Thank you for your bug report.