Re: [Ayatana] Condensed menuitems

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Cody Russell <bratsche@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Jorge Castro just pinged me and showed me the following:
> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-chrome-tests-unified-menu.html
> Kind of interesting, and I thought I'd post it to the list (if it hasn't
> already been posted) and see what our design-minded community thinks of
> these types of condensed menuitems.  They strike me as potentially
> interesting since we're always looking for ways to save vertical space on
> UNE.
> The obvious issue is that accelerator/shortcut labels are not displayed for
> these items.  Another potential issue is that it could affect the feel of
> left/right keying between menus.  This is not really an issue so much for
> Chrome since they only have one menu here.
> / Cody

That unified menu has a “Tools” submenu. As a result, I am not a fan.
“Tools” is meaningless, especially given that the menu itself is a
picture of a tool. The computer is a tool. Copy & Paste are tools. The
keyboard is a tool. A boat anchor is a tool.
Submenus are evil, too, and that is one thing the Chrome menu often
does a great job not having. Every time you add a layer of
categorization, you are hiding something and forcing somebody to slow
down. If the things in that category have so little to do with each
other that “Tools” is the best possible adjective, They Don't Belong
In A Category!

Having commented grumpily about that new design, Chrome as it is
provides a wonderful example of the value of condensed menus. Their
two menus on the top right are considerably more meaningful, and
better categorized, than the 5ish menus we have in most Gnome apps.

In addition, Chrome's menus aren't attached to a 100% wide horizontal
bar that takes up the rest of their space, so there is no further
incentive to expand them “because there's room, so it may as well be
used.”
Because the menu works so well, Chrome doesn't need another 100% wide
bar with big icons below it. The menu already does the job properly.

How did they do it? Simple!

They didn't give in to “tradition.” They didn't think “we'd better
have a File menu and stick Quit and Options under there because
everyone else does.” Instead, they designed the menu layout that makes
the most sense for their specific application. They created their own
narrow categories that perfectly group the functionality specific to a
web browser. Clever, indeed.