GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 736772
Consider removing Show Menubar option
Last modified: 2021-06-10 20:51:47 UTC
A couple months ago, I clicked on View -> Show Menubar and almost didn't figure out how to get the menu bar back (it's in the context menu). This is actually addressed in the draft HIG: "Do not provide a mechanism for hiding the menubar, as this may be activated accidentally. Some users will not be able to figure out how to get the menu bar back in this case." I don't see why the terminal should be a special case. It'd be good to update the HIG if this seems disagreeable. [1] https://people.gnome.org/~tobiasmue/hig3/menu-bars.html
There are people who use g-t without the menubar and those who use it with the menubar. I always hide the menubar because it is a waste of space and I almost never use it. Maybe using a header bar would address both sides of the argument?
(In reply to comment #1) > Maybe using a header bar would address both sides of the argument? That would certainly be best.
Currently there are 3 ways to remove the menubar: 1. Temporarily, via the right-click context menu. 2. Temporarily, via the View menu. 3. Permanently (for new terminals), via Edit->Preferences (and then quit all "old" instances of g-t that still have menubar). The 1st one doesn't sound dangerous to me, since enabling is achieved with the same operation. Or does HIG consideres even this one dangerous, in case it's activated accidentally that the user doesn't even know he right-clicked? The 2nd is indeed dangerous and I'd be fine with removing it. The 3rd is also dangerous, and could be addressed by an info box when the user unchecks "show menubar by default", letting them know about the context menu. > I don't see why the terminal should be a special case. It'd be good to update > the HIG if this seems disagreeable. The linked HIG section says it's a "general guideline", there might be a reason to override it. The terminal is a special application because it's a container for other apps, and as opposed to usual graphical applications actual work hardly ever happens in its menus. > Maybe using a header bar would address both sides of the argument? That's indeed another great possibility to consider, but in this regard all Gnome apps of a desktop should be consistent, so it's more of a WM issue, isn't it? (E.g. Unity makes this whole menubar thing a non-issue.)
I've just attached some patches to bug #734791 that hide this option on shells that show the menubar themselves (such as unity).
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