[Kstars-devel] KStars context menu

[Jasem Mutlaq]

Hi Jason,
 
> In the mockup, the clicked object is surrounded by a
> circle, above which we 
> present its name, object type and constellation. 
> Interactive elements are 
> colored light yellow, and they should get brighter
> on mouseover to indicate 
> that they are interactive.  Clicking on "C" centers
> the object in the map.  
> Clicking on "D" opens the Details window.  Clicking
> on "A" adds it to the 
> observing list.  (Obviously, these could/should be
> little icons instead of 
> letters).  
> 
> Clicking on "Data" displays some information about
> the object (mag, distance, 
> coordinates?, rise/set/transit?).  Clicking on
> "Images" or "Info" displays a 
> clickable list of image links or web page links. 
> This information would be 
> placed on the right, below "Data > Images > Info >"
> 
> I was also thinking you could click on the Transient
> object label to invoke 
> the "Attach Label" action (i.e., click the label to
> attach it to the object 
> permanently).  I like this idea, because it's
> intuitive (you are "sticking" 
> the label to the map by clicking on it) and
> unclutters the interface.
> 
> I haven't addressed the Angular Ruler interface.  I
> think we could just use 
> Shift+Drag, (or Middle-Drag or Right-Drag) for the
> Angular Ruler.  If we do 
> this, we'll need to make the map slew when the mouse
> nears an edge of the 
> map, so that offscreen targets can be reached while
> dragging.  The line that 
> is drawn while moving the cursor to the second
> endpoint should have an 
> attached text label that shows the current angular
> distance of the line.  
> Again, this keeps the interface simple, keeping a
> powerful (but not often 
> used) feature out of the way, but making it easily
> discoverable and intuitive 
> to use.  A user that discovers this feature will
> understand it immediately, 
> because they'll see the text showing the angular
> size of the line changing as 
> they move the mouse around.
> 
> Also, we could get rid of the "C" button in my
> mockup and just use 
> Double-click to center an object in the map.
> 
> Anyway, that's a lot of information.  Sorry about
> the core-dump :)
> What do you think?

I like the idea, and I think it is very elegant.
However, I still do think that most people expect to
make use of the right-mouse for context-sensitive menu
or some 'action'. This is part of the common GUI
paradigm that most users are used to. So what would
users see if they right-click on an object now?

Regarding implementation details, I'm assuming you're
only trying to replace the menu, and not the venerable
details dialog. So the icons in the radial menu will
be:

1. Data
2. Images
3. Info
4. Details Dialog?

There are a few other implementation specific details,
but they can wait. Do we have time to to include this
in KDE4?

Cheers,
Jasem