Re: [Ayatana] Design problem: Menus hidden by default in Unity

[Carl Simpson <cwd.simpson@xxxxxxxxx>]

The change that you propose might make it harder to see which application a particular menu belongs to.  I think it's that (and the desire to hide a bit of messy interface) that led to the current situation, although I've no citation on it.

I think in having it always-menu, care would need to be taken to make sure that it's obvious which window is focussed.  I know a lot of fuss has been made about shadows to highlight the focussed window, but that's a pretty weak visual cue which is vulnerable to being obscured.

Apple have that problem largely solved with the Application Menu or whatever it's called (the one that uses the application's name, in which they shove everything they can't think of a good place for. :/ )

Of course, the fact that they have had that consistently for some time indeed has meant that people have deliberately not made their applications have the same name as their first menu item.  Ubuntu couldn't do the same, especially since most of the applications on a default Ubuntu install weren't even designed for Ubuntu's interface, but indeed for Gnome's (there's another lovely problem with the whole state of affairs as we have it.)

In summary:  Showing only menus, how are you going to make sure people know what the menus being shown are for?

2011/3/15 Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>

Thorsten Wilms wrote:
> The alternative would be to show both title and menu, but giving
> the menu priority. For habituation and quick aiming, it's important
> that the menu always starts in the same spot from the left (assuming
> LTR reading direction). To guarantee that, without using an offset
> from the left that will always be too small or too large, the title
> would have to be right-aligned to the right side of the window or
> panel. But clipped/faded-out on the right, when necessary.

And where would the window buttons go?

If this discussion ends up concluding that they are better on the
right, the universe will probably explode with irony.

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