On 8/10/07, Jesse Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> - Tear-off hook at the top makes all mouse movements for selecting > >>> menus bigger, and looks ugly. Can we at least move this to the > >>> bottom of the menu? > >> > >> I didn't get this one... > > > > Current submenu from menu bar has a menu title without any text > > on it. > > I think David is suggesting to hide the menu title under the menu > > bar > > so user won't see it. > > A side-effect would be that users have nothing to tear-off the > > submenu. > > Actually, David's suggestion was to move the titlebar from the top of > the window to the bottom... but I'm not sure this is the best > solution for the reason I outlined in the email I sent previously on > this topic.
So the ideal solution is not to have title bar for submenu. And users can just grab the top-level menu item and tear it down. Using your screenshot as example, if they hold mouse on 'View' menu item and drag it out of menu bar, it becomes tear-down submenu. > > >>> - When you have a submenu as the top menu item, it looks like the > >>> whole thing is one fat menu. Apple fix this by having a special > >>> case > >>> that nudges the submenu down a few pixels. Can we do this? > >> > >> Actually, I like consistent behavior far better even at the cost of a > >> little 'few pixels' aesthetic discrepancy. > > > > I think David is referring to recent shadow support of Etoile. > > On mac, you will notice the submenu of submenu look > > a littie bit closer to users and casting a shadow on submenu. > > And they have a small overlapping to each other. > > In GNUstep, the submenu are on the same level so it looks flat. > > Nope -- he's talking about what you see in the attached images: > > This first image (submenu1.png) shows a regular submenu -- you can > see how the selected items in each line up. > > This second image (submenu2.png) shows a submenu when the submenu is > triggered by the first item in the parent menu -- the alignment > between the selected items is off. This seems to have been done to > prevent the submenu and the parent menu from looking like one big > menu in the rare cases where both menus are the same size. Like Saso > said though, this feels like a bit of a hack and certainly makes the > code less clean. My suggestion would be keep all windows the same, by > either: > > a) not doing the "first item drops the menu down" hack and making all > the menus line up > or > b) making all the submenus offset by a few pixels. > O.K. So this one is a consistency issue while (a) is current behavior. Both of the issues above have technical difficulties, I believe. I think they all fall into the same situation as using GNUstep theme for window title bar: it is nice to have, but the effort to work it out may be too much and involves a lot of hacks. > > Since you mention tabbed shelf, I have a proposal in terms of > > Etoile desktop. > > I believe that other than menu bar, > > we only have space for one other system-level stuff on desktop, > > either dock or tabbed shelf, not both. > > Dock is more like application switcher > > while tabbed shelf is more like application launcher. > > But they also have some functions from each other. > > > > So here is my proposal: > > 1. The application switcher part is in a Expose-like layer, > > which can be brought up by "Alt-Tab' or mouse on a corner of > > screen. > > That layer hopefully shows all open windows, minimized window, > > and probably a row of running application icon on the bottom. > > If possible, the application icon on the bottom also shows some > > limited information, like unread mail, just like GNUstep app icon. > > 2. The application launcher or tabbed shelf can stay on the > > border of desktop. > > Users can put whatever stuff on it and auto-hide it. > > > > As the result of above proposal: > > 1. If you launch an application which is not on the tabbed shelf, > > it will not appear on tabbed shelf. In another word, the > > tabbed shelf > > will not expand and shrink according to running application. > > 2. If you launch an application which is also on the tabbed shelf, > > we can add a hint on it to show this application is already > > running. > > 3. Minimized window will disappear from the desktop. It will not go > > into tabbed shelf. To see minimized window, use 'Alt-Tab' or > > move mouse to corner to see them. Same applies to hidden > > application, > > unless that application is already in tabbed shelf. > > > > In short, tabbed shelf (application launcher) is > > where users organize things themselves. > > If users do nothing, tabbed self stays static. > > Users can use their spacial memory to do things fast. > > Application switcher layers are organized by Etoile > > according to current running applications. > > So it changes dynamically and users' spacial memory is less > > useful here. > > > > Any comment ? > > This is actually a pretty smart setup -- there is nothing here that > really strikes me as bad. I would only suggest that the launcher > allow the possibility for other things to be put there: I personally > would like to be able to use that as a global space for shortcuts to > not just applications, but also people, folders, documents, etc. And, > since this would be a shelf with tabs, I don't see any reason we > couldn't have "Smart Tabs", which would easily allow you to make a > tab that queries for the 10 most recently used apps, thus fulfilling > your request below. Surely the tabbed shelf/launcher can hold any *object*. I focus on applications only because it overlaps with application switcher which confuses a lot of people during discussion. From technical point of view, tabbed shelf/launcher can be a GNUstep application with limited access to X window system, like EtoileMenuServer. But the application-switcher layer will be mostly a X application, like Azalea and Composite, which use Foundation, but not AppKit. Yen-Ju > > > There is one thing I like, but does fit into this proposal: > > I would like to have a space to list 10 most frequently used > > applications. > > I believe it serves most people's need as application launcher. > > Since it is automatically organized by the system, > > it should not stay in tabbed shelf. > > But on the other hand, not all of them will be running all the time, > > so they do not deserve to stay in application switcher-layer. > > Only running applications stay in application switcher-layer. > > Maybe we can have smart tab on tabbed shelf for such thing, > > but it will break the notion that tabbed shelf should be organized > > by users only. > > > > Anyway, just a thought for the desktop space. > > Good thinking -- keep it up! > > > J. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Etoile-dev mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/etoile-dev > > > _______________________________________________ Etoile-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/etoile-dev
