kickoff fusion idea and mockup

[Bert Saxby]

Well, the glory of Plasma...Someone can write another menu system and
make it a widget.  I suspect we're going to see a lot of menu systems in the
future. :-)

My personal thoughts, I agree with most of what Florian has said.
I find Kickoff to be a wretched mess, but I like the way it looks when you first
open it although it's a bit HUGE. Application navigation in Kickoff is ridiculous regardless of
usability studies.  If I can't make sense of it, or it wastes time it's not usable. It's definitely a time
waster if you don't have the app you want present off the root menu.

As for just digging around in Kickoff applications it is soooo easy to get lost. Imagine if there were
also Up/down arrows available in Kickoff navigation?...which by the way I think is curiously
omitted, but probably not wanting to confuse the user anymore with the complications already present.
Up down arrows with labels could take you from one category to another if you were inside a sub menu.
That would simplify navigation a bit, but again it might complicate this 'simple' interface.

So the argument goes...search for what you want...The problem with searching is very few noobs
know anything about the applications available on Linux.  Perhaps worse, the search system in 
Kickoff has no intuitive way back to the menu system. Sure erasing the search term takes you back, 
but how does someone know this? Training?  I suppose but not really an answer I think. Search to me
indicates I'm lost from the start.  Not good...plus what male asks for directions? Heh heh.

I prefer right click> Run command versus using Kickoff, but only because I know the
applications I have available.  For a noob, run command is virtually useless. Kudos though to
whoever is working on 'run command' btw.  The eye candy is pure genius.

For me I'll stick with the traditional menu and perhaps someday when I learn to code better
I'll make a widget that makes sense to me and we can debate its merits or lack thereof. :-)

Peace to everyone...I'm going on vacation!  No internet for at least a week...gotta give the
carpal tunnel a rest and run a defrag on the brain. Cheers!



      
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