Re: Look & feel, future plans

[Tim Harrison]

Stefan Urbanek wrote:

> Or, it just came to my mind: to have horizontal menu, which can be
> detached and will become vertical. And when vertical menu is moved near
> the top (or someone may like bottom) border it will become horizontal.

I like this idea.  You get the option by physically manipulating the 
menu.  However, it would be nice if there was a way of saying "I want 
this behaviour for this menu, but please apply it to all my menus from 
now on".  It seems that, lately, the concept of "the more preferences 
needed, the worse the UI design" is becoming more and more accepted.

I suppose the preference could be changed simply by performing the 
action of moving the menu's position (vertical to horizontal) by writing 
a key to the defaults domain, and when you wish to change back, you 
simply drag the menu back to the other position.

> I prefer horizontal menu, but I like detachable submenus which will
> remain open, so I do not have to go deep into the menu again.

Considering this is already the default behaviour of submenus, it could 
just remain a default behaviour, even if the menu is horizontal.  So, 
now, no preferences needed.  All menu behaviour is predictable, and 
managed by user action, not preferences held within some kind of 
preferences application.  It would make life much easier for the user.

--

Tim Harrison
tim@linuxstep.org
http://www.linuxstep.org/