unity-design team mailing list archive

[Luke Morton <luke.morton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 20:38 -0700, Tyler Brainerd wrote:
> Actually, I added a (extremely rough) mock up of what gcalc might look
> like. Basically, the most commonly used options ought to be
> (categorically) available the easiest. 

I agree, although determining what's most commonly used is easier said
than done--it depends heavily on the user's habits and their particular
needs. 

> In a tool like a calculator that doesn't have a lot going on as far as
> options its pretty easy to put these on a row of mode or view buttons.
> everything else can be found in the 'gearbox' options menu. Roughly
> like so:Calculator_027.jpg

How would I access that with my keyboard?

> This translates very well in simple apps, and with more work, could
> work well for more complex apps as well. 
> With the keyboard shortcuts, particularly the insert command,
> ironically enough I'm using chromium, which does not allow for that
> command. 

The point of accessing the Insert menu (in Evolution) was to illustrate
the discoverability of a feature without having to know its accelerator
key ahead of time.

> Presumably we could still allow similar behavior for common key
> presses of that sort,

I would expect items in the toolbar to have accelerators--especially in
the absence of a menu. But how would I know what they were? And even if
they were standardised (say the cog icon is in your example is
accessible via Alt+S), how would I know what they were?

> and honestly some of it will be taken care of by a clean shearing of
> commands that are used for actual action (i.e., in a file browser
> relate to actual browsing instead of slightly less needed interface
> editing like "reset view to defaults" or history clearing) and menu
> items which do not directly relate to the task at hand. 

You lost me here. Are you making a case for well thought-out menus? If
so then yes, I agree menus should be well thought-out.

> Again, Chrome is really a great example of giving context menus which
> are very dependent on the area clicked, and two very sparse clean
> menus, with all non-essential interface controls tucked away.
> Accessible in 3 or less clicks, but away. In addition, this would
> hopefully lower the levels of total overlap going on.

None of the issues I raised pertain to clicking (using a pointing
device). But you are right about the Chromium menus being well
organised. And the use of context menus is good too. 

However, Chromium also highlights one of the issues I menioned: how do
you open one of those menus without a mouse? I'll save you some
frustration for the "Customise and Control Chromium" menu: it's Alt+F. I
know that from trial and error--guessing key combinations until a menu
popped up. I'm yet to figure out how to duplicate a tab.

> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 8:15 PM, Luke Morton
> <luke.morton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>         
>         On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 18:47 -0700, Tyler Brainerd wrote:
>         > I know, I know, we just had an announcement about changing
>         menu's over
>         > to global menu's for the UNE. But seriously, how necessary
>         is 4 menus
>         > in the calculator application "gcalctool"? The only menu
>         options that
>         > have anything to do with actual calculator options are under
>         the view
>         > menu. The rest is silly and redundant.
>         >
>         >
>         > I just wrote a fairly long blog post on my blog here, along
>         with
>         > mockups and what not:
>         >
>         http://tjamesubuntu.blogspot.com/2010/05/re-thinking-desktop.html
>         >
>         >
>         > about how silly most apps menu's are. I'm hoping that we can
>         maybe
>         > pool some resources on looking at what is and what isn't
>         necessary in
>         > default applications in Ubuntu, although I'm not under any
>         impression
>         > that this will be something to be put directly in default
>         Ubuntu.
>         > However, I do think it is the sort of mod that can gain
>         traction
>         > similar to Nautilus-Elementary if we can get applications
>         repackaged
>         > with cleaned up and optimized menus.
>         
>         
>         "Cleaned up and optimised"; sounds like a good idea. How would
>         you do
>         that for the gcalctool menus? (They seem pretty good to me.)
>         
>         General comments:
>         (Pertaining to the removal of menus and replacement with
>         toolbar menus
>         as mentioned in your blog post.)
>         
>         1. Menus provide access to functions that might be otherwise
>         obscured,
>         infrequently used or hard to access--especially for people who
>         cannot
>         use pointing devices.
>         
>         For example, I can tell that if I want to insert something
>         into this
>         email I can press Alt+I to get the insert menu, even though
>         I've never
>         used it before. If that menu were represented by an icon in a
>         toolbar,
>         how would I get to it without having to tab through the entire
>         interface?
>         
>         2. Menus provide a convenient reference list of keyboard
>         accelerators.
>         If that menu were represented by an icon in a toolbar, how
>         would I get
>         to it without having to tab through the entire interface?
>         
>         Take gcalctool for example. If it didn't have a menu, and you
>         couldn't
>         use your mouse, how would you switch to a different mode? Quit
>         the
>         application? Input an ASCII character?
>         
>         3. A menu by itself takes up less space than a toolbar by
>         itself
>         
>         Removing the menu in gcalctool in the same way that
>         Nautilus-Elementary
>         removes the menu would mean that we'd have to add a toolbar
>         for the
>         functions that have no-where else to go. (I don't think this
>         is
>         particularly important though.)
>         None of these are absolute barriers to your idea, but they are
>         things
>         that need to be considered/resolved. 
>         
>         
>         
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