Feedback from What New Users Want BoF at ubucon

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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On Sep 14, 2006, at 7:02 PM, Petr Tomeš wrote:

> 2006/9/14, Evandro Fernandes Giovanini <evandrofg at ig.com.br>:
> ...
>> I don't think having 4 entries would be too much for a menubar. In 
>> fact, I think the top panel looks quite empty now, and even more so 
>> on
>> widescreens. Also, "Help" is a toplevel menu in every single menubar 
>> on the system (all applications), except the panel.
>
> This is one of reasons why not to do it. The another is that no 
> important operating system (Windows, Mac OS X) or desktop environment 
> (GNOME, KDE, XFCE) or Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, 
> Mandriva) has this "top level menu item" on panel. I think only 
> KDE-based desktops have help icon on main panel.
> ...

I think your conclusion is right, but your premise is wrong. Both 
substantial desktop operating systems (Windows and Mac OS X) *do* have 
"Help" at the top level of their system menus: Windows in the Start 
menu, and Mac OS X in the global menu bar.

Since Ubuntu has neither a Start-menu-like system menu by default, nor 
a global menu bar, there would be two "Help" menus on the screen most 
of the time, which would be a bit confusing. On the other hand, that 
there is no indication of which things on the panel are buttons and 
which are menus is already confusing.

- --
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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