[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Menu bar

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Thursday 19 September 2013 22:02:56 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 19. September 2013, 19:48:40 schrieb Thomas Pfeiffer:
> > > * Use standard items for categories: File, Edit, View, Insert, Format,
> > > Tools, Settings, Window, Help.
> > 
> > I'm not sure if I understand this one correctly. Does it mean that these
> > common categories should be labeled with these names? In that case, my
> > wording suggestion would be:
> > Use these names for common menu categories: File, Edit, View, Insert,
> > Format, Tools, Settings, Window, Help.
> 
> It's a (slightly modified) bullet of the old article. I understand it as all
> menus should include those categories. If you double check some programs
> it's actually true, at least for the first four items.

Okay. The wording "use standard items for categories" still doesn't seem  
clear to me. Maybe "Use these standard menu categories if they apply to your 
application:" would work better?
 
> > > * Do not make the menu bar hideable, users may not easily be able to
> > > make
> > > the menu bar viewable again.
> > 
> > This point is open for discussion. I agree that menus should not be hidden
> > by default and they must not be hidden in a way that they can only be re-
> > displayed with a keyboard shortcut or context menu (like e.g. Amarok does
> > it), even if instructions on how to show it again are given when users
> > hide
> > it. However, menu buttons like in Dolphin make it quite easy to re-show
> > the
> > menu: Click the button, check "Show Menu", done. I know you find even the
> > menu button a bad idea, but I don't see a serious usability problem in
> > this
> > way.
> 
> Every application should include a main menu. Users should not be able to
> hide this menu bar.

A menu in a menu button instead of a menu bar is not hidden, is it? I still do 
not see a convincing argument for the necessity of a classical menu bar. For 
me it's only necessary that the menu items are always accessible without 
having to press a keyboard shortcut first.
Firefox and Chromium have had menu buttons instead of menu bars by default for 
a while now, and it seems like not many users have complained about them, so 
why can we not use them?

> > > * Hide menu items that not apply at all.
> > 
> > What do you mean by "not apply at all" in contrast to "don't apply to the
> > current context"? If a menu item does not make any sense in an
> > application,
> > it should not be hidden, but completely removed (I don't think that people
> > would implement a menu item which just does nothing in the first place
> > though, would they?)
> 
> Good question for the main menu. The idea is to hide the "spell checking",
> for instance, if written text is source code versus to disable it for text
> input when no dictionary is installed. But in terms of main menu all
> functions should be relevant. I remove this item.

It makes sense to distinguish between main menu and context menu here, yes.