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

[Luke Benstead <kazade@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 15 March 2011 20:13, Vishnoo <vish@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-03-15 at 15:51 -0300, Conscious User wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>>
>
> I dont think we should decide _not_ to do the right thing just for the
> sake of irony..  ;-)
>
> Sane design trumps irony any day.. ;p
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Vish


Erm, I hate to point out the obvious, but why don't we just put the
menu back in the windows and abandon appmenu as a failed experiment?
Keep the title and window controls in the panel for maximized windows
only (at least just for Natty).

I can already imagine the replies to this email, so let me save you
guys the trouble:

1. Someone will bring up Fitt's Law. Yes I know what it is. No, I
don't think it should be used as an overriding reason to squash,
overlap, and generally complicate a UI and shove it into an edge. I
especially don't see why Fitt's law is so important for menu bars,
when users get on perfectly fine with buttons, sliders, window resize
grips and icons, and well, everything else.

2. Someone will likely bring up the space saving of the global menu.
Firstly, the global menu only saves vertical space on a maximized
window, on non-maximized windows they only save on "chrome". By
keeping the title in the panel for maximized windows, we are still
saving 22px on Gnome 2, with the removal of the bottom panel that
brings it up to 44px. It's about finding a balance of space saving vs
usability and I really think we have shot past that balance point with
the global menu.

So, the question again raised is why exactly are we using a global menu?

I know I've brought it up before, but alongside the issues we are
having fitting it into the panel with the title, it also brings issues
with dual monitors, large resolutions and focus-follows-mouse. It
doesn't fit all use cases.

I think we should revert the global menu for Natty, and spend the next
6 months innovating on the menu bar, finding a replacement that
doesn't have the chrome but is easy to use. Firefox and Chrome have
come up with their replacements and Elementary are removing it
altogether in their apps. Now we have a dbus API for exporting the
menus maybe there is another, better, more compact, way to display
them to the user?

The only other suggestion I can come up with is to make the title a
button that displays the menu bar as drop down menu (Firefox style).

Luke.