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Message #08710
Re: (no subject) LIM (locally integrated menus)
Hi All,
Thx for the feedback, but might it not be a bit premature to start
critiquing functionality before you have tried using it? I am
reasonably confident that nobody who has replied to this thread has yet
used LIM because a) not all the code for it has been finished b) the
first post makes a bunch on incorrect assumptions about how LIM works,
and none of the replies have pointed this out! Anyhow, in the interests
of not letting this get in the way of a good discussion... ;-)
So here is a quick light hearted locally integrated menus Q&A to
hopefully clear up any misconceptions:
Q. What are locally integrated menus?
A. Menus within the context of each individual window.
Q. How are these menus displayed?
A. There are two options, either traditional menus at the top of each
window, or menus integrated into the window title bar.
Q. What do you mean by menus integrated into the window title bar?
A. Click on the Window Title in the window title bar and the root level
menu is revealed as a... menu!
Q. Some apps don't have menus. How do I know that when I click the
Window Title a menu will be revealed?
A. Apps that have menus will have a small, subtle icon to the left of
the window indicating that a menu is available. A similar design
pattern is already used in applications on other platforms.
Q. ahhh, fewwww, for a moment I thought I would have to click or move
my mouse over that itsy bitsy tini wini small icon every time I needed
to reveal a menu. I was already having nightmares about it!
A. No need to worry, we wouldn't make you target such a small area
every time you needed a menu ;-)
Q. How about the idea of displaying the menu in the window title bar
horizontally?
A. This was our initial idea. However with this design you run into a
bunch problems with both dragging the window and with small windows. We
went through all the possibilities of how we could solve these problems
with things like having a reserved space on the right hand side of the
window title bar for dragging, etc..., but this still impacted window
management and was a very hackish, dirty solution. And there was still
the problem of small windows.
Q. I don't want to click to reveal menu! I have RSI, and every click
hurts so I try to keep clicks to a minimum.
A. Then used the 'traditional menu' option. You loose screen real
estate, and you have to look at menus all the time, but that additional
click is avoided.
Q. But why can't you just reveal the menu on mouseover? Surly this is
a better solution?
A. Again this was part of the initial idea, along with menus integrated
into the window title bar itself horizontally. However this also
affected window dragging, and we set ourselves a design baseline of not
regressing window drag behavior in any way. In addition, the dev team
pointed out that having menu reveal on mouseover would not work well
with X, would require changes to IndicatorAppMenu, and would more than
double the required development time. So usability regressions for
window dragging + the thought of doubling the required development
budget conspired to kill this idea.
Q. Tell me more about how the menu is revealed, won't clicking on the
Window Title to reveal the menu also get in the way of dragging windows?
A. The menu is only revealed on the *release* of a normal click. A
'hold' won't display the menu when it is released, and large pointer
movement between the 'press' and 'release' of the click will similarly
stop the menu from being displayed. However small amounts of mouse
movement are tolerated, as there is almost always a small amount of
unintentional mouse movement, even in the low millisecond time range
between the 'press' and 'release' of the click. The result of this
behavior is that you can drag the window by clicking on any point in the
window title bar without worrying about accidentally revealing the
menu. However if you want to reveal the menu all you have to do is click!
Q. Sounds great! When can I start using it?
A. Thanks for your enthusiasm, but there is still some way to go before
it is ready to use. The design is still under consideration, and we
haven't yet completed user testing which may well drive further
changes. Also while this is an important feature, 12.04 is a LTS, and
for a LTS the primary concern is stability. This feature did not hit
our quality standards by the required deadline, and as much as I love
this feature it is more important that we don't do anything that might
jeopardize making 12.04 a rock solid release.
Q. That's all well and good, but you haven't answered my question about
when I can start using it.
A. We are looking at options for bringing LIM into 12.04 post-release,
but I can't promise anything yet, and it may well be that LIM becomes a
12.10 feature.
I hope that answers some of your questions ;-) I look forward to a more
in-depth discussion and good constructive bug reports as soon as this
feature is ready and made available for testing.
thanks,
John
On 14/03/12 04:48, Omar B. wrote:
I have to agree that LIM is not the best solution and could have some
issues.
From all the feedback in bug 682788, was able to conclude that a
better solution would be something combined from these 2 urls:
http://musl1m.deviantart.com/art/Windicators-well-sort-of-203350326
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/682788/comments/106
That would probably satisfy most users.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:30:10 +0000
From: shaneymail@xxxxxxxxx
To: f_padia@xxxxxxxxxxx
CC: unity-design@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Unity-design] (no subject)
I agree about LIM. I used a similar system on KDE (oxygen-appmenu)
and at first I liked it a lot but over time it becomes a huge annoyance.
It feels inconvenient when you are just trying to get to a particular
menu item quickly (which is where the HUD could prove invaluable) and
it can be frustrating when you open a submenu and the mouse goes
slightly in the wrong place and in trying to correct you end up losing
the menu and have to start again.
As far as I'm concerned, LIM is NOT the way to go unless it is
optional and not default.
As far as your idea goes for integrating into the titlebar:
This is something I have also suggested in various places and seems
the perfect solution.
The menu is out of sight when not needed but just as easy to access as
traditional (boring) window menus.
The best bit is, it's consitent with the global menu so users who
choose to have the menu on the menubar or integrated into individual
windows would still be instantly familiar with the behavior (windo
title replaced by menu on mouse-over).
My only concern about your specific idea is the menu icon may be too
small a target for many users.
Discovery probably wouldn't be a problem since users would likely
mouse-over the menu icon just to see what it is but more experienced
users would want to move their mouse where the expect the menu entry
to be, not move to the menu icon then move across to the menu entry.
I think for such an idea to fully work, one would need to be able to
place the mouse in any part of the title bar.
On 14 March 2012 00:11, Faheem Padia <f_padia@xxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:f_padia@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Sorry to re-post but I've been advised that emailing all contacts
the way I had first time wasn't the best way of starting a
discussion so this should correct that...
Hello to all,
I have just joined the list because I had a design idea for the
implementation of the locally integrated menus that are supposed to be
introduced at some point. I originally put the idea on brainstorm
but it
was marked as 'not an idea' on the basis that unity design is actively
discussed in other places. I guessed this was on such place where my
idea might be more appropriately voiced but if I am wrong please
let me
know. Anyway on to the idea...
Basically from the opinions of other Ubuntu users I have read
(mostly on
OMGUbuntu) I understand that LIM is not particularly popular in its
current form. The 2 main criticisms I have come across commonly
are that
1. having a vertical menu is not convenient and requires
re-learning the
arrangement of menu items unnecessarily and
2. implementing LIM would mean an additional click is required to
actually see the menu which is counter-productive
so my idea so solve both of these would be to have an animated
reveal of
the menu horizontally in the window title bar when the mouse
hovers over
the menu icon. This would keep the menu as close to how it is
currently
but also introduce the LIM concept of having the menu attached to the
title bar of an application. This solution also doesnt introduce
any new
problems of dragging windows (that I have come across from other
ideas)
since the menu only reveals when the mouse passes over the menu
icon and
not over the title bar in general.
I'm sure a number of ideas for this have been explored and I apologise
if this particualr idea has also been discussed but it would be
interesting to hear other peoples opinions nonetheless.
Thanks
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