kde-quality Digest, Vol 24, Issue 15

[jos poortvliet]

Op donderdag 26 januari 2006 16:46, schreef Vladislav Blanton:
> Inaki,
>
> Sorry, for some reason your second to last email was cut off in Kmail.  I
> see that you agreed with getting rid of the *System menu idea.
> I think that having two separate menu's is nice, but is very much a gnome
> thing.  If we would go that route then it might be worth working with Gnome
> to create a unified menu for all upcoming releases.  I'm not sure that's
> possible or even whether it's a good idea (or not). it needs thinking and
> splitting the menu in two is nice, but it might not be the answer.
> As for the shutdown/log out options, I need to think about it some more.
> Introducing all the buttons inside the menu could create problems and
> introducing a *System menu could create problems. Does it even need to
> change?
>
> Vlad
>

hey guys

sorry if this is old or irritating or stupid...

what about dumping the whole 'menu' idea for starting applications? apple uses 
the finder, and just having a search interface with some quickstart buttons 
would work very well, too, i think. 

why not let the KDE menu button start a konqueror window with things like most 
used apps, categories, quick search, some recent docs etcetera? some kind of 
'starting point'? it could be a way to get things going into the direction of 
a action or document-based interface, instead of application-based.

a menu has some real disadvantages: 
- hard to navigate (work on a laptop with the hopeless MS windows menu and you 
REALLY know what i mean), 
- can get very crowded (microsoft introduced the automatic hiding for this, an 
usabillity nightmare of course, but a fix for a real problem)
- inefficient (if the app isn't in the quickstart, it can take several clicks 
and precise mouse movements to get where you want to go - i don't say RSI... 
ow, i did?)
- and it is a waste of screenspace, imho. yeah - a menu uses just a little 
part of your screen. well, that means the rest is wasted - you have to 
concentrate on the menu anyway, why not make it a bigger (or even fullscreen) 
app...
- i'm sure there is much more...

i saw gnome mentioned. well, don't u guys think the (currently massively 
overcrowded) kcontrol is even MORE usable than the gnome configuration? its a 
menu...


for plasma, i rather see an applet or maybe even a full context-sensitive 
desktop coming up when i click a certain button or hit a hotkey... what if 
the full desktop contained an (dynamically growing/adjusting) bunch of 
applets with info, recent docs, search, application launcher - all of it.

i hope i didn't annoy anyone...

greetings

superstoned


-- 
You're working under a slight handicap.  You happen to be human.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-quality/attachments/20060126/3dac83cf/attachment.pgp