GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 634456
Restructure main window menus for clarity
Last modified: 2018-06-29 22:47:02 UTC
Following up to the changes in bug 634357, I realised that GC's main window menus could be reorganised to a more intuitive, discoverable layout. I propose a new menu structure below. My goal with this is to classify menus into either important GnuCash `objects' like accounts, reports, or `tasks' like online, planning, business. With that in place, the menu items themselves fall into the proper menus almost automatically. I've also tried to eliminate submenus in favour of just top-level menus and menu items. I think this makes the UI much more discoverable. I'm proposing this rearrangement for the 2.5 series onwards. By 2.6, we'll probably have more UI changes so it makes sense to me to lump them together into that future series instead of continuous small-to-medium UI changes--less confusing to the user and more time to learn about and get used to them. File New Open... [... everything else ...] Export Accounts... [... everything else ...] Edit View [... everything that's there already ...] -- Scheduling Reminders [renamed from Actions > Scheduled Transactions > Since Last Run...--more discoverable at expense of move to slightly less topical location, IMO worth it, and GnuCash does have more confusing UI than this :-] Price Editor Security Editor Financial Calculator General Ledger Actions [delete this] Reset Warnings... [IMO this should be somewhere in Preferences] Rename Page [delete--IMO there's no benefit from this, and some potential for confusion] Accounts [everything to do with manipulating accounts] New... [these commands manipulate one account at a time] Open Edit Delete -- Stock Split... View Lots... -- Transfer... [these commands manipulate >1 account at a time] Reconcile... Auto-Clear... Repair... [make this a dialog, maybe an assistant] Close Book Planning Schedule Transactions [make this a verb-noun menu item name to clarify] Mortgage & Loan Repayment... -- New Budget... [... other budget menu items ...] Online Setup... Get Balance Get Transactions... Issue Transaction... Internal Transaction... Direct Debit... Business Reports Help
"Export Accounts..." - yes, better wording than currently. "Scheduling Reminders" - yes, much better wording than currently. Removal of "Rename Page" - yes, get rid of that one "Accounts" top-level menu - yes, good idea. Maybe call this "Account" (singular) instead? But the menu and your proposed content is good IMHO. Removal of "Actions" top-level menu - yes I don't quite agree with the additional items in the view menu. I expect the View menu to contain actions that relate to the "currently opened view (window/tab)", but not a collection of actions to open some other new views. Instead, those should still go to the second-to-last toplevel menu, which can then be called the notorious "Tools" again: Business Reports Tools Scheduling Reminders Price Editor Security Editor Financial Calculator General Ledger Reset Warnings... [Either here or somewhere in Preferences] Help Also, when you start reviewing our ui/*.xml menu definition files, you will notice the menus change their contents quite a lot, depending on the content of the tab that currently has focus. Hence, you would need to define quite a number of those menu items differently depending on the various front content.
+1 from me too. I have been thinking along the same lines for a while, but never got to actually writing a proposal. I have a slightly different organisation in mind: As Christian already points out, some menu options are only relevant for a particular window. For example, the accounts menu are only relevant when the accounts tab is open like: new, edit, delete in the account menu only make sense when on the accounts tab. The same goes for the register. So I would add one menu that is each time very particular to the currently active tab: when the accounts tab is active, have an accounts menu with all the relevant menu items. When the active tab is a register, have a register menu with the items relevant to a register. While the register is active, the accounts menu should be hidden. Aside from that, I see a menu specifically to open the main tab for the most important objects, like accounts, budgets, general ledger,... I'm not sure what to call that menu yet. The global idea is to clearly separate context sensitive menu items from globally relevant items. Note, I have added a new enhancement request specifically for the business features (bug 635003), which I believe can also use some love.
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