Bug and discussion about ubuntu menu

[Ioannis Nousias]

Ouattara Oumar Aziz (alias wattazoum) wrote:
> Ioannis Nousias wrote:
>   
>> Ouattara Oumar Aziz (alias wattazoum) wrote:
>>     
>>> Thank you for this constructive comment. Technically speaking, it'll be 
>>> very hard to have every section GUIs merged into one (as those are 
>>> different applications). So there is 2 solutions I see :
>>> - Using sub menu for section :
>>>
>>> System
>>> ` configuration
>>>    | - Personal Info
>>>    |   | - timezone
>>>    |   | - language
>>>    |   ` - About Me
>>>    | - Display
>>>    |   | - resolution
>>>    |   | - appearance
>>>    |   ` - screensaver
>>>    | - Sound
>>>    | - Input
>>>    | - Printers
>>>    | - Peripheral Devices
>>>    | - Network Connectivity
>>>    | - Security
>>>    ` - Disks and Storage
>>>        | - Backup
>>>        | - Partition Editor
>>>        ` - Maintenance
>>>
>>> - using some /mini control center Guis/ by section :
>>>
>>> System
>>> ` configuration
>>>    | - Personal Info
>>>    | - Display
>>>    | - Sound
>>>    | - Input
>>>    | - Printers
>>>    | - Peripheral Devices
>>>    | - Network Connectivity
>>>    | - Security
>>>    ` - Disks and Storage
>>>
>>> Some feelings about these ideas ?
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> It looks nice. My personal view as a user is that menus are 'slow'. The 
>> restructuring ideas you guys suggest will certainly speed things up 
>> (navigating your way across menu options), but they will still be slow.
>>
>> I don't use menus. First thing I do after a fresh install is remove the 
>> menu applet. I rely solely on semantic search using deskbar. Deskbar is 
>> by no means perfect, but it's much faster finding what you need, from 
>> launching applications to those obscure configuration tools.
>>
>> It's nice to get the menus 'cleaned up', but if something really needs 
>> attention is semantic search across the entire desktop. If well thought 
>> and designed, something like deskbar can become really powerful.
>>
>> But since we are talking about menus, wouldn't it be cool if by typing 
>> in it starts filtering out irrelevant options ? (with a little text-box, 
>> like the one appearing in nautilus for instance).
>>
>> regards,
>> Ioannis
>>     
>
> It is true that it is faster to launch the application via Deskbar, but 
> to launch it , you need to know exactly what you want to launch. and 
> that's why you have a menu (which needs to be well designed) so that it 
> drives the user to the application he wants. Then once you have seen the 
>   name of the menu entry or of the application, you can use Deskbar .
>
> The KDE4 menu is, I must admit, very well designed as it combines a 
> Deskbar with a well organized menu.
> A future project could be to use the same model for gnome.
>
>   

On the contrary. Semantic search (and I emphasise the 'semantic' part 
here) abstracts you from names one might have chosen for an application 
or option. Again, I'm not implying that semantic search works perfectly 
in deskbar (in some case it works well). For instance I want to rotate 
my screen. I should be able to type 'rotate' and greeted with options 
that can do such an action (hopefully one of them will be the xrandr gui 
or something like that)*. Continue typing 'screen' or 'display' should 
further narrow down the options.

regards,
Ioannis


*mind you, this example in deskbar returns 'eog' (thus giving the option 
to rotate a photo), but not the settings for rotating your screen, which 
is a shame. We really need powerful semantic search.