[KDE Usability] On the future of the menubar

[Aurélien Gâteau]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
>>> 2) System Settings does not have a menu bar either:
>>> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=171915
>> And closed as WONTFIX, since otherwise Netbook users will claim that
>> "its a useless waste of space!".
> 
> How is System Settings different than any other KDE application in this regard?

Many KCM modules need a lot of vertical space. Some can be improved, 
others cannot (speaking as someone who spent quite some time trying to 
fix some of them before 4.0 was released). Therefore it makes sense to 
leave most space available to what matters.

This is not specific to System Settings, so I think it would be good to 
standardize a "reduced menu" in the HIG, similar to what Rekonq created. 
The use-case would be applications which do not need large menus and 
have important vertical space needs.

- This menu would be included in the toolbar either as a "Menu" button, 
or as an icon if horizontal space is limited (that's the case for 
Rekonq, where horizontal space is best left to the url lineedit).

- This menu would contain items like "Configure", "Quit" or "Help", with 
"Help" being a submenu like Rekonq does.

- A limit should be defined to let developers decide whether it makes 
sense for them to use a "reduced menu".

Aurélien