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[Ayatana] GNOME Main Menu and the Distribution Logo
Hello everyone,
The distro logo is a logical requirement for a default desktop setup for branding purposes (and maybe some others). Where should it be, how should it be displayed, and how should it behave?�For some reason, it�
is on "Applications" on the GNOME Main Menu applet and I have issues with it.
On Windows, the branding logo looks prominent and is on the bottom left, by default. It's the button that opens the Start Menu and it had the word "Start" on older versions. I'm fine with its current (Windows 7) look and behavior, because the word "start" doesn't exactly represent what the menu is. This button with the logo serves as the main menu of the whole operating system.
On OS X, it is a little icon on the top left corner and it behaves like a "System" menu, if I'm not mistaken. (I can't check because I'm not on a Mac so correct me if I'm wrong). The logo represents the "Macintosh" and it opens a menu of things that will control your Macintosh system. To open applications or folders and do other things, the user has to click something else. This makes sense, because other elements in the stock OS X desktop obviously suffice for those non-system things.
The GNOME Main Menu works like the Windows Start Menu, but is split into three. The branding logo comes with the prominently positioned Main Menu applet (which makes sense), but it just happened to be stitched to the first entry (which doesn't make sense). I was actually thinking about how GNOME 3.0 will fix the issue, but we don't have to wait for its release before we resolve this.�
How do we fix this? We can display the distro icon differently, move it somewhere else, and make it behave differently. This will largely depend on technical limitations. Right now, other than something like SLAB menu, a quick fix that I can think of is to make the logo act as the "System" menu. The order of menus will be *Distro logo* ("System"), Applications, and Places. However, this can make the System menu too prominent based on the F-shaped reading pattern. "Applications" and "Places" should be displayed more prominently in the screen to avoid this potential issue. I recommend exploring other solutions, though. Always remember that "Applications," "Places," and "System" don't necessarily need to be in one applet.
Moving forward, I also noticed that GNOME Shell doesn't have a placeholder for the distro logo and I don't think it can be stitched to the "Activities" button.�
What can you suggest for now and for GNOME 3?
Best Regards,
Allan Caeg
