GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 735508
popover submenus make the original menu disappear
Last modified: 2015-08-16 13:38:30 UTC
Popover submenus (e.g. tools or view in gedit) are not very usable. When you click them, the whole menu disappears and the submenu (typically shorter than the full popover) is away from the clicked item. It would be much better to expand the submenu below the clicked item, similar to the submenus of the gnome-shell system menu.
as a differing data point: the current implementation is actually how these type of menus behave on OSX.
Indeed, and they're just as annoying on OS X. :) Seriously, I would favor consistency within GNOME over similarity to OS X.
(In reply to comment #2) > Indeed, and they're just as annoying on OS X. :) manner of perspective: I find them very much pleasing. > Seriously, I would favor consistency within GNOME over similarity to OS X. the actual argument is to make the Shell pop over menus behave like GTK+'s — which I think already has a bug opened about it.
The obvious advantage of the shell style is that if you click the wrong one you can switch away with a single click instead of two. What is the advantage of the GTK+ style?
(In reply to comment #4) > The obvious advantage of the shell style is that if you click the wrong one you > can switch away with a single click instead of two. > What is the advantage of the GTK+ style? that the menu does not grow uncontrollably in a constrained vertical direction (most, if not all displays are wide screen). the reason why Shell popup menus are implemented that way was technological, and the design was informed by that. it wasn't a conscious initial design decision to have menu items work as vertical accordions.
> that the menu does not grow uncontrollably in a constrained vertical direction > (most, if not all displays are wide screen). True but if your popover menus are so big that you are constrained that way (especially given GNOME's focus on maximized usage of applications), I think you should be using regular menus instead of the hamburger. In the case of gedit, one menu is 2 items, and the other is 5 plus a separator, and both of them are really far from the top of the popover. Vertical clutter is not a concern compared to the amount of mousing required (in the case of gedit, using the menu with the keyboard is not practical: no accelerator to reach it, no accelerators within the menu, too complicated to give focus back to the text area). I'd agree with you if all menus could expand independently. But it seems to me that gnome-shell gets the right balance by allowing exactly 1 menu.
The downside of gnome-shell style is that it grows the size of the original menu when of the reasons of those submenus is to keep the popover size small (especially since popover can not exceed the window). That said, there is something a bit annoying in the current implementation... it feels like things are moving around too much under your mouse... one of the aesthetic problems is that the blue selection flashes during the animation
I think bug 741155 covers the same ground as this one *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 741155 ***