On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Abhi Beckert
<abhi@abhibeckert.com> wrote:
For me the floating menu is quite awkward and doesn't go well together with any modern OS of today. It takes up space on the desktop and won't let you maximize your window without hiding the menu.
In my opinion all menus in every environment are awkward and a total waste of space. On my mac I almost never use menus except as a way to search for a feature in a program I don't know how to use. Most of the time I use it by typing into the search box in the help menu, then once I know the keyboard shortcut I escape out of it and use that.
I don't directly use menus either, but menus are there as a way to discover about functionality -- and to discover functionality's shortcut. Well, unless a functionality is rarely used, in which case it won't have a shortcut -- and you'll need a menu anyway.
The "search-menus" feature of OS X is, to me, not much more than a useless gimmick; either I know where the feature is, or I know the shortcut, or I'll have to figure out where the feature is in the menus, anyway -- and I may learn about other features in the process.
I like the approach some modern Windows apps use (IE 10 for example) of burying menus in a single icon in the window toolbar, or only showing the menu when you tap the Alt key.
You'd love Unity, then; it hides the menus. ;)
(I'm just kidding, the top menu bar does take up the space. At least it merges with window's titlebar.)
Even is how menus behave in full screen mode on OS X, it's too bad full screen is totally useless for other reasons. I wish Apple made this menu behaviour available in window mode (for those who haven't used it, you touch the mouse to the top edge of the display to show the menu bar, and sometimes the toolbar will also expand to something larger with more more buttons).
This makes sense; autohide for menus would be neat. Maybe it's a good idea to keep in mind if we get around to providing a good desktop environment. :-)
Windows Metro also has a pretty decent approach towards showing menus, although I find the gestures a bit awkward.
And now we come to a place where I have to vehemently disagree. What menus? You mean the toolbar that's open in the most undiscoverable manner possible -- right click? (Gestures don't count for me, as I don't have a touchscreen.)
Rightclick has for ages been used as a context menu, and now it's redefined to display a toolbar?
Metro has only one upside on the desktop for me: large fonts in most of the apps. Otherwise? It's a mockery of everything a desktop is and should be.