menubar section of KDE's HIG needs rethinking

Jakob Lehmann jamano910 at googlemail.com
Sun May 23 23:17:28 BST 2010


Hello,

I wrote a bug report about the menubar section of KDE's HIG today, I

made a suggestion how that section could be improved.

Because I believe that this is a topic that needs discussion, I post the

proposal here as well, thank you! The bug report can be found here:

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=238624 it also contains a

mockup.


 -----------------------


 The KDE Human Interface Guideline (HIG) declare, that a menubar is

mandatory for every single application, quotes:


"Provide a menubar in every application main window"

"Don't make the menubar 'hideable', users may not easily be able to

make the menubar viewable again"


 This has grown to be a problem, since application developers tend to

get away from menubars and as such - violate the KDE HIG.

Applications that in their current state violate this part of the HIG are

for example rekonq, konsole, kget, the systemsettings and palapeli to

name a few.


 There are valid reasons to replace the menubar how it looks today

with

something more useable, more visually appealing and less space

wasting.


 But first of all let us see, what is good about the menubar:


 - provides an easy way to access every functionality of a program

- accessibility features (press alt+*key*)

- menubars are also present in Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNOME

etc.


 So what is bad about the menubar?


 - wastes vertical space, which is a problem on smaller screens and

annoying on

bigger screens

- menubars are flat, thus they are not usable on touchscreen devices

- doesnt look appealing

- uses deprecated labels like "file" (quassel has a "file" entry with the

entries "networks -> join network" and "quit", where is there a file

involved?)

- text only which makes it hard to use for people who have trouble

reading (for

example disabled people), also this makes it harder to find what you

are

looking for since you dont have self explanatory icons


 What could be done to improve/replace the menubar?


 The menubar should be merged with the right side of the toolbar,

entries should

be reordered and renamed, in general there should be less entries

(for example

there could be an entry "actions" with basic actions such as "save"

"open"

"print" and "find", "help" doesnt need to be an own entry). Menubar

entries

should have icons. It should be configurable in system settings

whether icons,

text or both should be shown, this should also apply to the toolbar.


Problems with that:


 - some applications do not have toolbars (I just know one: Konsole)

- needs work, a template needs to be written and applications need

to be

changed

- KDE would be the first one to fully replace the menubar, breaking

same look

and feel as other desktop enviroments


Why this would still be better:


- saves space for applications

- makes it work on touchscreen devices

- would look better

- increased accessibility

- less confusing to find the right function

- more modern look and feel

- would stop violation of the HIG


I hope you see the opportunities that are open for KDE, to be a

pioneer in this

issue.

Please note that this should be considered a draft, it needs further

discussion

and tweaks, maybe a completely different solution will be found in the

end.
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