Menu structure change
 

On 02/06/2009 03:12 PM, drago01 wrote:

Removing stuff will get people search for the tools in google instead
of in the other menu categories.

There must be a better solution than either "leave it as is" and "just
present a long list"


Please don't jump to conclusions. Removing stuff from a specific menu
doesn't necessarily mean removing functionality.


For example, two things that could[*] be done to the "Screen Resolution"
item is to combine it with something else, say maybe the "Appearance"
dialog, or even to turn it into an applet which could arguably be more
convenient for those that need to adjust it on from time to time.


Another example, the "Assistive Technologies" item has one checkbox and
then buttons which launch other items already in the menus, two of which
have accessibility tabs already in them. That could surely be re-worked
better?


* Note that I am not necessarily recommending any of those, just citing
them as examples.


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Menu structure change
 

Matthias Clasen wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I have just build a redhat-menus package that gets rid of the Submenus
> in Preferences. We kinda inherited them from the control-center shell,
> which never really took off, and they didn't really work well, since the
> categorization left people guessing which submenu to open.
>
> This means the Preferences menu will be a bit long. We should perhaps
> take it as encouragement to weed out some unnecessary things from
> there...

I think a good test for "too long" is if the menu fit without scrolling on
a 600 pxiels high display, so it us usable on both netbooks (1024x600) and
maybe also old displays (who are still on 800x600).

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Menu structure change
 

Am Freitag, den 06.02.2009, 14:01 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:
> Hey,
>
> I have just build a redhat-menus package that gets rid of the Submenus
> in Preferences. We kinda inherited them from the control-center shell,
> which never really took off, and they didn't really work well, since the
> categorization left people guessing which submenu to open.

I don't thing that's a good argument, because you get used to the
submenus quickly. I really liked them. We worked hard to get everything
right, filed bugs against packages that were not inside of the submenus,
and now we throw all this away?

> This means the Preferences menu will be a bit long. We should perhaps
> take it as encouragement to weed out some unnecessary things from
> there...

I have a pretty standard install of F10 and I have 28 menu entries for
preferences. A screen with 600 px height and two panels can only take 18
menu entries, this means that we'll have to remove 10. This isn't
possible, at least without ether a) removing stuff that really is needed
or b) major changes in Gnome upstream.

> Matthias
>
Regards,
Christoph

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Menu structure change
 

On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 10:25 +0100, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 06.02.2009, 14:01 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:
> > Hey,
> >
> > I have just build a redhat-menus package that gets rid of the Submenus
> > in Preferences. We kinda inherited them from the control-center shell,
> > which never really took off, and they didn't really work well, since the
> > categorization left people guessing which submenu to open.
>
> I don't thing that's a good argument, because you get used to the
> submenus quickly. I really liked them. We worked hard to get everything
> right, filed bugs against packages that were not inside of the submenus,
> and now we throw all this away?
>
+1. I've received this update yesterday and it makes the Preferences
menu much less efficient to use. Please put the sub-menus back.

> > This means the Preferences menu will be a bit long. We should perhaps
> > take it as encouragement to weed out some unnecessary things from
> > there...
>
> I have a pretty standard install of F10 and I have 28 menu entries for
> preferences. A screen with 600 px height and two panels can only take 18
> menu entries, this means that we'll have to remove 10. This isn't
> possible, at least without ether a) removing stuff that really is needed
> or b) major changes in Gnome upstream.
>
I have 800 px height and two panels and it hardly fits there on pretty
standard Rawhide install...

Martin

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Menu structure change
 

On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 10:25 +0100, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 06.02.2009, 14:01 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:
> > Hey,
> >
> > I have just build a redhat-menus package that gets rid of the Submenus
> > in Preferences. We kinda inherited them from the control-center shell,
> > which never really took off, and they didn't really work well, since the
> > categorization left people guessing which submenu to open.
>
> I don't thing that's a good argument, because you get used to the
> submenus quickly. I really liked them. We worked hard to get everything
> right, filed bugs against packages that were not inside of the submenus,
> and now we throw all this away?

Well, if you got used to submenus quickly, you will probably also get
used to no submenus quickly...

On a less flippant note, somebody is already working on a package to add
submenus in a separate package, like the games-menus (?) package does to
the games menu.

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Menu structure change
 

On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 09:15 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 10:25 +0100, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> > I don't thing that's a good argument, because you get used to the
> > submenus quickly. I really liked them. We worked hard to get everything
> > right, filed bugs against packages that were not inside of the submenus,
> > and now we throw all this away?
>
> Well, if you got used to submenus quickly, you will probably also get
> used to no submenus quickly...
>
Not necessarily. It's easier to navigate through shorter menus, divided
logically, than in one loooong manu that hardly fits your screen, at
least for me ;-) Although, I don't say the current sorting is flawless.
E.g. what is the difference between Preferences->System and
Administration? Gnome-control-center does not differentiate between
those two :~/

> On a less flippant note, somebody is already working on a package to add
> submenus in a separate package, like the games-menus (?) package does to
> the games menu.
>
That sounds like a good and pretty much conflict-less solution to me :-)

Martin
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Menu structure change
 

Martin Sourada wrote:


Not necessarily. It's easier to navigate through shorter menus, divided
logically, than in one loooong manu that hardly fits your screen, at
least for me ;-) Although, I don't say the current sorting is flawless.


This is one of the reason I rarely use the bookmarks in Firefox: the
list is so long that I have to scroll it a lot even on my large display
so it's awful to find anything in there. Completely unusable, but I know
it is my guilt for not having organized it in folders.



E.g. what is the difference between Preferences->System and
Administration? Gnome-control-center does not differentiate between
those two :~/


Actually that one should be simple: everything under "Preferences" is
supposed to affect only the logged-in account and everything under
"Administration" is account-independent.


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my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/

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Menu structure change
 

Am Montag, den 16.02.2009, 09:15 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:
> On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 10:25 +0100, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> > Am Freitag, den 06.02.2009, 14:01 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:
> > > Hey,
> > >
> > > I have just build a redhat-menus package that gets rid of the Submenus
> > > in Preferences. We kinda inherited them from the control-center shell,
> > > which never really took off, and they didn't really work well, since the
> > > categorization left people guessing which submenu to open.
> >
> > I don't thing that's a good argument, because you get used to the
> > submenus quickly. I really liked them. We worked hard to get everything
> > right, filed bugs against packages that were not inside of the submenus,
> > and now we throw all this away?
>
> Well, if you got used to submenus quickly, you will probably also get
> used to no submenus quickly...

How about the space argument then? How do you want to get rid of 10 menu
entries (that's more than a third)?

> On a less flippant note, somebody is already working on a package to add
> submenus in a separate package, like the games-menus (?) package does to
> the games menu.

Yes, that's Rudolf Kastl and me, and it's a sisyphean task, because most
packages don't use subcategories correctly. The only desktop files that
were using it were the ones in the prefs menu, but nobody will notice it
any longer. :(

Regards,
Christoph

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Menu structure change
 

Christoph Wickert wrote:

Am Montag, den 16.02.2009, 09:15 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:


On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 10:25 +0100, Christoph Wickert wrote:


Am Freitag, den 06.02.2009, 14:01 -0500 schrieb Matthias Clasen:


Hey,

I have just build a redhat-menus package that gets rid of the Submenus
in Preferences. We kinda inherited them from the control-center shell,
which never really took off, and they didn't really work well, since the
categorization left people guessing which submenu to open.


I don't thing that's a good argument, because you get used to the
submenus quickly. I really liked them. We worked hard to get everything
right, filed bugs against packages that were not inside of the submenus,
and now we throw all this away?


Well, if you got used to submenus quickly, you will probably also get
used to no submenus quickly...



How about the space argument then? How do you want to get rid of 10 menu
entries (that's more than a third)?



On a less flippant note, somebody is already working on a package to add
submenus in a separate package, like the games-menus (?) package does to
the games menu.



Yes, that's Rudolf Kastl and me, and it's a sisyphean task, because most
packages don't use subcategories correctly. The only desktop files that
were using it were the ones in the prefs menu, but nobody will notice it
any longer. :(

Regards,
Christoph



I appreciate all of the thought and work that you are doing on this
project.* I have a thought though, wouldn't doing away with the
submenus create a level of "clutter" that would detract from the
"presentation" of the desktop.* The use of submenus reduces the clutter
and the primary menu levels add a degree of categorization to the
submenus by collecting them within specific categories.* Perhaps it a
better way to present things would be to provide the ability to "edit"
the menus to allow users to bring to the primary level the submenus
that they use on a regular basis for their own customization.*



Thank you,

Roy Bynum



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Menu structure change
 

On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 09:15 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:

> On a less flippant note, somebody is already working on a package to add
> submenus in a separate package, like the games-menus (?) package does to
> the games menu.

Turns out I was wrong and had to do this myself...
Anybody who wants an easy way to get the Preferences submenus back is
welcome to do the package review:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=487263


Matthias

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