I've committed a few changes to menu layouts in the menu_reorganisation branch:
https://rosegarden.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/rosegarden/branches/menu_reorganisation I'd appreciate your thoughts. I've been trying to achieve three things: * to reduce the number of nested menu functions * to make things easier to find for a new user, even if it means making the menu layouts less strictly logical in some ways * not to make things weird for existing users (most things are called the same and are in the same or related places) I haven't made any changes to functionality at all (unless by mistake). The changes I've made so far are mostly in the notation view, with a few in the main window -- though the notation changes will be much quicker to describe because they're less bitty. The changes are as follows: Main window: * Make Studio a top-level menu in its own right, instead of a submenu of Composition Rationale: It simply has too many important functions on it to be buried. It was previously under Composition to emphasise the fact that the studio setup is saved within the composition, but I think that's not a compelling enough reason. I've placed it to the right of the Composition menu to try to suggest a similar hierarchical structure. * Pull Tempo/Time Signature functions up into Composition menu instead of a submenu Rationale: They're obvious functions, the submenu was small, the new Composition menu is not too big. Also renamed Change Tempo to Add Tempo Change, because the former (although more strictly correct because the function can modify existing tempo changes as well as add new ones) seemed to imply that there is only one tempo per composition. * Rename Manage Files Associated With Audio Segments to the more approachable if less technically correct Manage Audio, and move it to the File menu Rationale: The name was a bit off-putting, and complicated enough to look like a specialized function rather than an everyday one. File is a more obvious place to go for audio file management than Segments; I think people often flounder around File looking for somewhere to load audio files from, and this will help a bit. * Pull the F1-F5 tools up into the main Tools menu instead of a submenu. Rationale: Tools menu is small; this is a good way to get an overview of what tools are for and what their shortcuts are; also makes it clearer what is actually meant by Tools * Move Reset MIDI Network from Tools to Studio Rationale: It's a studio function; its previous home rested on a different meaning of Tools ("utility functions" rather than "things you carry around to do something with"). * Re-order the default studio management functions in Studio Rationale: Make it harder to hit Save Current Document As Default Studio by accident when trying to mouse to a MIDI management function. Notation view: * Flatten the Tools menu a bit, as in main window (rationale above; I also did this in the matrix window) * Divide the Notes/Adjust menus up into three: Note, Phrase, and Adjust. Rationale: Trying to put things where you'd expect to find them. The Note menu contains functions that alter the appearance or style of notes "in isolation", i.e. marks, ornaments, stem direction, accidental spellings etc. Phrase contains functions that alter groups of (usually) notes in relation to one another, such as beams, slurs, ties and dynamics. Adjust contains all the rest: miscellaneous sequence-editing things like Invert; fine positioning; quantize; transpose etc. Phrase is relatively flat, but the other two still have lots of nested menus. I find it fairly easy to make a mental map from "what the function does" to "which menu it's on" in this scheme. I'd like to hear your reactions. One thing that I don't think is in the right place is the pair of Pedal functions on the Segment menu -- they would seem more natural as a single Phrase operation (select a series of notes, ask to make it pedal-down). But that would mean changing the behaviour of the function itself, a bit, and I'm not doing that just now. Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-devel mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-devel
