[PATCH] enhancing kicker menu extensions

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Monday 15 March 2004 15:51, Klas Kalaß wrote:
> On a very quick scan of your patch (forgot to attach a new file?) I could
> not see how you make sure that
> those strange Menu/Action/Button hybrid things actually distinguish
> themselves graphically from simple menus. I am amazed that with all this
> usability discussions going on, nobody seems to have objected yet.

I don't agree.

1.) IMO the simple/basic/obvious/easy-to-use functionality is provided by the 
normal konsole application button in kicker. You click it and you get a new 
konsole.
The current Konsole sessions button takes this basic functionality *away* and 
leaves you only with the advanced functionality: choose which session type 
you want.
The "enhanced" Konsole sessions button preserves the basic functionality of 
the normal konsole button (which I think is the desired functionality in most 
cases), while adding the enhaced functionality in an unobtrusive way.
The newbie user can still click the button and gets a new konsole.
If he thinks "Now let's try something advanced and hold the button for a 
moment" he gets added value, he can choose the session type.

2.) Especially for konsole: the "new session" button in konsole behaves 
exactly like the "enhanced" kicker session button: open a new session when 
clicked, open the menu delayed.
When the konsole sessions kicker button was added between kde 2 and kde 3 it 
already featured this behaviour, I thought at this time: "How cool ! Behaves 
exactly like the button in konsole ! What a good usability !" ... and added 
this button to my kicker.
Later on the behaviour was changed, the "open konsole when clicked" was 
removed and I was left with the menu. I thought "This sucks. In 90% of the 
cases I just want konsole. Now I have to click, choose the right session from 
the menu, and then click it. So much clicking, what a bad usability ;-)"
But I was to lazy to remove this button again from my kicker.

3.) Consistency.
We have button with the arrow in:
application toolbars: start an action or open a menu delayed
kicker: open a menu when left clicked
kicker applet handles: open a menu when right clicked

So we have already three different behaviours. Adding the enhanced 
functionality won't make things worse. If the user doesn't find the delayed 
menu, no problem. He can simply click the button and gets the obvious 
behaviour :-)
Of course it would a good idea to have a different marker on these differently 
behaving buttons. Maybe I can do something about it (I'm not too talented...)

4.) AFAIK the normal konsole button was removed from the default kicker layout 
recently, because konsole is considered too user-unfriendly or something like 
this. Now if the simple button is already too unfriendly, which newbie user 
will even notice the enhanced behaviour ?

Bye
Alex
-- 
Work: alexander.neundorf at jenoptik.com - http://www.jenoptik-los.de
Home: neundorf at kde.org                - http://www.kde.org
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