the Ubuntu help menu

[Andreas Lloyd]

David Symons wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-07-25 at 16:20 +0100, Matthew East wrote:
>   
>> http://www.mdke.org/blog/HelpMenu.html
>>     
> +1 for a separate Help menu.  Some thoughts:
>
> 1. Help
>     -> Installed Documentation (goes to Yelp)
>     -> Online Documentation    (goes to help.ubuntu.com)
>     -> Live Chat Support       (see 5. below.  Its 'community nature'
> will need to be emphasised)
>     -> Other Support Options   (goes to ubuntu.com/support)
>     --
>     -> About Ubuntu            (moved from System menu)
>   

Still too many options, I think. As Matt pointed out, it would be good
to integrate the Online Documentation directly into the Yelp browser - a
function which may just have been properly implemented in Yelp (thanks
again, Don!)

The Live Chat Support idea is good, though. But it would be strange to
highlight that more than the other community options. It might also
create a huge influx of users who aren't accustomed to IRC chat on the
Ubuntu Support channels, and who might be intimidated by the strange
jargon and cacophonic chatter there.

Earlier I suggested that the Community Support link should bring up a
dialogue asking "What kind of community support would you like?" - but
as the idea developed, we ended up with a plan to develop the current
community support page on the ubuntu.com website. I've added some
mockups of what that might look like on the Wiki
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Website/SupportSection], and have been in
negotiations with the artwork team about getting some cool buttons for
each support options
[https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2006-July/002717.html].

Moving the "About Ubuntu" item would make sense, given its current
content, though would be it wouldn't make sense if the spec about having
that item contain an "about box" that displays the Ubuntu version and
basic information about the system as specified here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AboutUbuntu .

> 2. Have it as a separate panel applet that is installed by default - so
> people can remove it if so desired.  I'm at 1024x768 and it's getting
> crowded up there (I'd remove the Places menu if it was possible).
>   
All menu items can be removed by right-clicking on them. I don't think a
help menu would be any different.

> 3. Beware confusion.  Having "Help" in the panel will mean people will
> be confronted by two "Help"s - one in the panel and another in the
> application menubar.  Just the sort of thing that will magnify the
> frustration that is frequently concurrent with seeking Help.
>
>   (In OSX, there is only one "Help" visible at all times and its content
> changes depending on what is the foreground).
>
>   That said, the word "Help" in the menubar is the dominant paradigm.
>   
I think that risk is worth taking, though. The OSX way of having just
one menu bar which changes depending on the active application is not
very intuitive either, and I have loads of trouble explaining this to
people who are new to Macs. It's not a better solution, it is merely
different.

Hopefully, putting the Help menu next to the System menu will help to
indicate that we are in fact talking about "System Help" ;-)

An interesting aside would be that the moving of the Help menu (with or
without the "About" links) would unclutter the System menu considerably.
Maybe that would open up new possibilities of reorganizing the painfully
overburdened "Preferences" and "Administration" menu items.

At the Paris summit, the Kubuntu guys were doing a really good job
reworking the KDE system settings tool
[https://wiki.kubuntu.org/KubuntuSystemSettingsUsability], and I think
forces within the GNOME community are looking at doing something similar
for GNOME. If anybody knows more about this, please let me know.

Andreas

-- 
https://launchpad.net/people/lloydinho