unity-design team mailing list archive

[Sebastian Schepens <sebas.schep@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Yeah, I don't think it's that much of a problem. Fitt's law keeps
> being quoted as an excuse to do stuff over and above other factors.
> I'm still unhappy that the global menu has been implemented despite
> not-working well with dual-monitors, focus follows mouse, or really
> large resolutions, but whenever this gets mentioned "Fitt's law" seems
> to be the overriding excuse. We need to stop putting so much emphasis
> on Fitt's law, it's only one element of good usability.

+1
> My suggestion is that we shouldn't be hiding menus behind titles, it
> would be far more sensible (IMO) to consistently display the
> application name in the title bar of each window as a menu, whose
> submenu consists of the current menu bar (e.g. display "Firefox" next
> to the window controls, clicking "Firefox" would display a drop down
> menu containing "File", "Edit" etc.). If a window is maximized then
> the panel becomes the title bar.

It could be a solution, but i'm no fan of submenus, you just get lost. Imagine all menus items in one submenu, then these also have their own submenus, it just would be too cluttered, unless doing something like firefox did with its new titlebar button, it's much more organised.Anyway, with your proposal, wouldn't we be hiding menus under a title also? The fact is that menus just would make the titlebar ugly, and most people wouldn't want to see menus all the time, only when they are of use, and then they could be accessible just by dragging the mouse to the titlebar.
I have a 1024*768 resolution, pretty small monitor, and i find really hideous to have to drag my mouse to the panel to access the menu when windows are not maximized, it's far from logical to show window controls on unmaximized windows but continue to show the menu on the panel.
As to the issues proposed:1) http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_1QSDkzYY2vc/TV1ykj9zUgI/AAAAAAAADA4/wb3dfkvSVOg/gedit_menu.png The mockup shows how, even when the menu is shown, part of the window title is still show, this space would be used to drag and maximize apps, it would be the most logical thing to do, and what i believe most will think of when presented with this scenario.2) This is really the only problem i see, i guess the user will be obliged to enlarge the windows a bit, but what if the window is size-fixed? Anyway, the menu items that would be hidden are the last ones, and the most useless in my opinion, but it's only my opinion.
Although globalmenu still has some issues to work with i approve of it and furthermore find this idea to be really useful.
Sebas
Ps: first contribution to ayatana, from a regular ubuntu user who wants to help.
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