GNOME Main Menu Improvements?
Which one do you like better?
What it looks like today
This one doesn't ellipsize (ie, shorten the word and add "..." if it doesn't fit) but rather word-wrap
This one uses a generic name
This one uses the application name
November 30th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I like the way it is today, at least out of the ones shown. That way it looks tidy, plus it still shows both applications and descriptions.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
How about showing both the application name and the description if the app name fits on one line and just the application name otherwise (if possible)?
November 30th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I don’t feel that the description is something useful, especially if the full name is showed. I feel the menu must stay reasonnably small and light on reading. So I vote for the last one.
By the way, a feature I would really like to see is the possibility for the user to create and add its own launcher, as with the gnome panel. Any plan to do that ?
November 30th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Application browser takes too much time to load, can we have the same layout with application browser but also a search box where you can search for applications instead of opening application browser.something like KDE menu
November 30th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I agree Atul.
I would really like to see an easier method of showing all the other apps avaiable than application browser.
The Places menu can be deleted and the items placed on the right under the system categorie.
The search dialog should work live so that it should show the result right in the main-menu with the optional possibility to open up the search dialog. It should work on both data and programs.
Here’s my concept : Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!
November 30th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
sry here the correct link: http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gmmbyleszekbi6.png
December 1st, 2008 at 12:28 am
Atul & Leszek > To me Application browser is very fast to load. What kind of processor do you have ?
And I definitely don’t like the KDE menu. It is messy and almost unusable.
Please keep main-menu that way.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:16 am
+1 “What it looks like today”
December 1st, 2008 at 2:10 am
I vote for #4 with the option given to users to enable descriptions if they so choose.
While I like #2, i’m confused why the app name is word-wrapped, but the description is not.
Wordwrapping is needed because for those of us with low-vision, the cut-off in present menus is pretty annoying. About 90% of my g-m-m and yast menu apps are cut off and unreadable. The only reason I know what to click on is because I know from memory. But to anyone else who increases their screen size/DPI, leaving it “the way it is” effectively makes GNOME unusuable. I’m guessing that most of the ones who +1′ed leaving it the way it is haven’t really taken that into consideration and have a lot more comfort room to fit in full text whenever possible. But let’s not forget, GNOME’s intent is usuability and accessibility.
December 1st, 2008 at 3:29 am
I agree with Bryen that the default ought to be as accessible as possible. I also agree with Atul – I’ve long said that the KDE menu works better for “Other Apps” than the App Browser in GNOME.
I further think (gawd, shut up James!) that while the default should be like Bryen says, there ought to be a Properties window (accessed via right-click on the menu) with the options of enabling “Shorten Application Names” – which would ellipsize – and of “Show Application Descriptions” which would do what it suggests.
While I’m at it, a property of “Maximum Items to Show” would be handy and if on the Places tab there were more bookmarks than that then maybe it would scroll? (Someone tell me that’s a lousy design idea).
There could also maybe be a property of “Show: [x] Favourites and Recent; [ ] Only Favourites; [ ] Only Recent” for Apps and Documents.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:53 am
i like g-m-m-ellipsize.png
December 1st, 2008 at 7:57 am
Generic names make much more sense for the Favorites menu. It’s enough if full program names are visible in the application browser. And there I would rather swap the places and put generic descriptions on top and app names at the bottom in small print.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:03 am
And while I much prefer the application browser over the KDE menu which is botheringly laggy with its sliding, I would still like a merge of the app-browser into the GNOME main menu like this:
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9563/singlecolumnmainmenujr7.png
or this:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4756/uebersimplemainmenurs6.png
December 1st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Number 2 is the best. Having the application name and description is important for clarity. Though Bryen is right… the descriptions should also wrap in that example.
It would be nice see the Applications section expand in length (especially according to resolution and text size) so that they could remain on a single line instead of wrapping. This may be a problem for applications with long descriptions. A compromise would be to expand the length of the applications section long enough to fit the application name without wrapping, then the descriptions would wrap if longer than the longest application title.
As for people asking for a better solution to further application browsing, I think MintMenu (a customized/forked version of USP) is by far the best gnome menu out there in terms of integrating the full application list into the menu itself:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NeWhoa/Test#5239510085570745922
http://picasaweb.google.com/NeWhoa/UbuntuThemeTesting#5239368162020481890
- Darin
December 1st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I vote for #4.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
But also as it is today it is OK. (Sorry for the double post)
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 am
I dig the way it looks today. Why change a good thing?
December 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
App Names, of course!
I care about “Firefox”, not about “Web Browser”.
After all, I use “openSUSE”, not “An Operating System”.
And I run it on a “MSI Wind”, not on “A Computer”.
But to be honest, I don’t like slab at all, since it takes too many clicks to get an overview about all the applications that are installed on the machine (the first thing I do with any distro).
December 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Oh, and last time I checked, the thing you’re talking about was called “slab”, not “Gnome Main Menu”.
April 28th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
the design of the MSI Wind is similar to the basic netbooks you can find around. the price point of this netbook is cheaper than acer or dell netbooks |
August 17th, 2010 at 3:22 am
the new models of MSI Wind are even feature packed and very lightweight-:~
September 1st, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Bah, your site makes my firefox crash all the time