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

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Saleel Velankar wrote on 15/03/11 19:39:
>
> On Tuesday, March 15, 2011 5:34:52 PM Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
>>
>> I have a simple proposal to fix these problems: The application title
>> should be removed from Unity's menu bar.
>
> Possibly. The titlebar is used to differentiate between two windows of
> the same app, or less used to differentiate between windows of
> different apps. By clicking the maximize button, the user is saying
> that I want all the available screen space to be dedicated to this
> window (note: its not this app) please see my tweak to thorwils idea.

The application title can't be used to differentiate two windows of the
same app, because it is identical for both. And almost exactly the same
problems exist for menus of maximized windows as of unmaximized ones;
the redundancy problem is the only one that goes away.

(It would be interesting to replace maximization with a standard
function that really *does* make "all the available screen space ...
dedicated to this window".)

> On Tuesday, March 15, 2011 7:28:59 PM Thorsten Wilms wrote:
>>
>> If menus are disliked that much, I wonder where the alternatives are?
>> Piling everything up in one mega-menu is only acceptable for seldom
>> used functionality. Many applications have way to many commands to put
>> them into a toolbar or to sprinkle the interface with them.

Indeed. The mega-menu approach works only for applications with
relatively few distinct functions, such as Web browsers. Even then, it's
at a disadvantage compared with the menu bar: for example, it's quicker
to find a page you visited yesterday in Chrome for Mac (because it has a
full "History" menu) than in Chrome for Ubuntu or Windows (because they
don't).

> In the perfect world, there would be button in the toolbar. when you
> click it will pop-up a box saying "what are you looking to do?" and
> search/display through the menu options based on what the user has
> typed ala GnomeDo/ Krunner.

Mac OS X has that in the Help menu for every application.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOoOvIqiWe0#t=22s> But searching works
only if you are already confident that the application does the exact
thing you're looking for. If you aren't, you still need to be able to
browse the functions of the application. Menus are an information-dense
way of presenting those functions.

>...
> Here is an idea, make it time based. it being 'giving the preference
> to'. If I am watching a youtube video inside a maximized Firefox
> windows, and my mouse activity is low, then the title should be given
> the preference. If my mouse/keyboard activity picks up then the menu
> should be given the preference. I assume this is technically feasible.
>...

The difficulty there is that the menu bar would be flickering from the
menus to the title at a moment when you're probably trying to
concentrate on something else.

- -- 
mpt
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