[Raptor-Menu] Clicking vs. mouseover

[Kristian Dalgard]

(Sorry for double-posting, please feel free to delete this comment from the
Raptor site.)


This projects looks fantastic, really hope to see this implemented as soon
as possible (especially the new centered kicker).

I do feel a need to question the philosophy behind the "one panel only"
idea, though, as this implies the need for clicking - sometimes a lot - to
get to the part of the menu you want.

In the default KDE 4 menu this seems as quite a nuisance, I would say almost
a deal-breaker. Having used a mouse for quite some time I have reasonable
precision, so it doesn't bother me too much to labyrinth my way through
submenus. It does bother me a lot, though, to completely lose my overview of
the menu that is supposed to give me a look of my options. Maybe I'm simply
a bit neurotic, but this makes me feel like I'm missing something while not
being able to see what it is.

More importantly, though, from a user interface psychology point of view,
clicking is associated with commitment. From a users point of view making a
click is expected to have some kind of consequence, that is, changing
something or bringing the user to a new "place". Sometimes the change is
even irrevocable and thus clicking has a certain gravity.

Using the main menu is supposed to be spontaneous and free of responsibility
- something you do very often during a session - and you would want to feel
that everything is unchanged should you change your mind. The user already
has this relationship with context menus and menu bars in applications which
also work in a fold-out manner, and I think this should be preserved.

Unfortunately I don't have a ready solution to this 'no-click
one-panel-only'-problem. But I think the great designers on this project
should give it careful consideration.
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