unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 26. mai 2011 22:53, Ed Lin wrote:
> enough to warrant that spot. The top panel is misused as place to get

Why do you say it's misused?
> The second point seems to be more of a special case, it's mostly about
> terminal windows I understand? Browsers have tabs, file managers have
> split panes, tabs and usually you never have that many opened, text
> editor windows usually aren't stacked above each other because you
[snip]
No. Terminal windows were only meant as examples of small
windows. I often have two text editors on top of each other
so that I can read from one and write with another without
having to switch contexts, for instance. In some cases, using
a tabbed interface is quite nice, but in others, it's much better
to see everything without having to switch back and forth.

[snip]
> The terminal is also a special case because it has no toolbars, all
> its controls are in the one menu, this makes separating the menu from
> the window very clean and logical, on other apps with multiple rows of
> GUI controls, the global menu would appear more arbitrary.
Yes, there might be a few exceptions, which is why I proposed
making it possible to choose not to use the global menu for
a single application/window. But it seem very unlikely to me that
you would ever have a complex application like you're describing
as a small window. Apps like that tend to be maximized, at least
vertically, because of those very toolbars that you mention. You
made a point of that yourself earlier. That means it would almost
always still be a short distance between the menu and toolbar.

[woops]
> (This has also implications with Fitts's Law, if D, the distance to
> the target, is really small as in this typical case the in-window menu
> is definitely faster to access on larger monitors)

Regarding the mouse travel to the menu and back, I think that's
a very interesting point. Would you ever use an apps menu and
use the mouse for anything else at the same time? That's
unlikely. So perhaps it would be possible to teleport the mouse
pointer to the menu when you press alt and back again when
you're done with the menus? I've never tested anything like
that, but it might be worth testing.

[snip]
> If you want a tl;dr:
> Very good points but if the goal is reducing clutter and maximizing
> screen estate for actual content (and some Fitts's Law for good
> measure) why the menu? Why *just* the menu, why not something else*?
> Colorful Toolboxes with sometimes tasteless icons are far more
> noisy... And as said, the hover behavior has to go  so that would
> weaken the first argument (it could stay as an option though).
That's easily answered. The toolbars are filled with the most
common actions. The menus contains all the other things,
the much less common actions. The calculator, for instance,
does indeed have a help menu. How often do _you_ use it?
It has some other menus too, but I only ever use the one to
change modes. And I do that from time to time, but not nearly
often enough for it to warrant a toolbar. So you see, there
is a big difference between hiding the menu and hiding the
toolbars. Granted, some applications provide a toolbar filled with
uncommon actions, just to have a toolbar. That's wrong, and
certainly both annoying and distracting, but that must be
fixed in each application. The toolbars should only ever contain
tools you do want available at all times. The rest should be
placed in menus and tucked away for when you want them.

I'm not saying that nothing can be done to improve toolbars,
but I think it's a very different issue.
> *Actually I think I know the answer:
> it's done before, we know it will work
> it's easier from a technical as well as from a design point of view
> Doesn't sound like the best reasons to me and I prefer not having a
> feature to having a broken feature any day.
You were wrong. The fact that it has been done before, would
never be my answer to anything. That would be an insane
argument, having in mind all the insane things people have
done in the past.

It is for these reasons:

* It gives the desktop a much less technical feel.
* You would never need to read the title of a window and use
   its menus at the same time.
* It conserves space on your screen.
* It reduces duplicate information.
* It is more aesthetically pleasing.
* And (I almost forgot this one, actually): I do think it's more
  consistent to always have the menus at the same place.


Hope you had fun. :)

Jo-Erlend Schinstad