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Re: [Ayatana] why global menubar/application menu isn't such a great idea




Mitja Pagon a écrit:
> You are making all sorts of false assumptions about how people
> use computers. If you ever observed "regular" users you would know,
> that most don't use keyboard shortcuts, some don't even know they
> exist. Furthermore, I've personally once came across someone who
> didn't know they could right click.

> There are drawback to global menus (especially as implemented in
> Unity) and there are benefits, but calling them bad UI is just
> uninformed personal option.

> And calling menus "oh so 1999" just makes you look silly and again
> uninformed.

> Try reading some of the links you included and you will hopefully
> gain some understanding of the subject you are talking about.


While I disagree with Mitja's tone (as usual), I agree with
his main point. Most of giff's points were based on general
assumptions backed up by little more than anecdotal evidence.
And anecdotal evidence is easily countered: less than a week
ago a user in this list mentioned how he had no problems with
using OSX in a large HD monitor, for example.

The existence of things like DejaMenu is hardly convincing
evidence either, specially in the Linux ecosystem where there
are hacks for anything and everything.

Also, giff mistakenly uses an old post about the original
Unity as an argument, ignoring the fact that netbooks are not
the primary target anymore, effectively invalidating some of
his points from the very beginning.

The rest of the text is mostly questionable, with some apparent
contradictions, both internal (ex: emphasizing how unnecessary
the menu is, while complaining about the global menu making it
slow) and external (ex: complaining how prominent it is, while
a lot of people are complaining about not being prominent
enough due to the show-on-hover).

Overall, the points are not clear from a realistic point of
view. At the end of the day, it seems the main point of the
text is "menus will die someday, so let's pretend this day has
already arrived and move from there", which kinda... doesn't
work in real life. :)