I can verify that hiding the menus by default is problematic in my (limited) user testing.
On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Matthew Paul Thomas <m...@canonical.com> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > After several weeks of trying, last week I finally succeeded in > installing Natty to test Unity. > > I was disappointed to see that in Unity, menus are invisible until you > mouse over where they are supposed to be. For a window, until you mouse > over it, the space reserved for its menus is taken up by an application > or window title. And for the desktop, until you mouse over it, the space > for its menus is completely empty. I reported a bug about this, but John > Lea marked it as Invalid on the grounds that "this change request > contradicts the design". He requested that I discuss it here. > > The design John cited is not the menu bar specification > <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MenuBar>, but a separate "The Unity Menu" > document that is new to me. > <https://docs.google.com/View?id=dfkkjjcj_1776g5ztgbc3> > > I see four major problems with hiding the menus and covering them with > an application or window title. > > 1. Most importantly, it makes the menus much harder to use. > > The "The Unity Menu" document says that "The top level of the menu > rarely shows significant information (it is not an indicator) - it > consists essentially of category headings, like 'File' and 'Edit' > and 'View'. None of those add any relevant information to the task > at hand, or wider awareness." > > Whoever wrote that is mistaken. Every time the task at hand involves > using a menu, it is necessary first to be aware of, and then to move > the pointer to, the desired menu. That is much harder to do if the > menu is invisible until just after you finish needing to know where > it is. Whether the menus collectively are "an indicator" is > irrelevant: the first item in the rationale, for what determines > whether something appears in the menu bar, has always been "It's > not whether it's a status indicator". > <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MenuBar?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=whether-something-appears.jpg> > > 2. It makes some functions effectively invisible. > > For example, last month Jack Wallen wrote for TechRepublic > <http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/opensource/x/2291>: "One of the > most handy menu entries in GNOME (for me at least) is the Connect > to Server entry in the Places menu. This allows the user to connect > to nearly any type of server quickly and easily. The user can even > connect to a Windows Share from here. In Unity - you won’t find > that. In fact, you will be hard pressed to find any means to > connect to a server in Ubuntu Unity." > > At the time, I didn't understand how he could have had that problem. > Now I do. The "Connect to Server" item, which is in the "Places" > menu on the Ubuntu 10.10 desktop, is in the "File" menu on the > Natty desktop. But the desktop appears, incorrectly, to have no > menus at all. > > The "The Unity Menu" document says "Many modern applications are > being designed without substantial menus". The problem with that > approach was explained in my initial post introducing the menu bar: > it results in gratuitous inconsistency between applications. > <http://design.canonical.com/2010/05/menu-bar/#history> But that is > beside the point. Hiding menus for windows that *do* rely on them > does nobody any good. > > 3. The application or window title becomes ugly when the menus appear. > > For example, when using Nautilus's menus, the menu bar reads > File Man File Edit View Go Bookmarks Help. > > Similarly when using Terminal's menus, the menu bar reads > Termina File Edit View Search Terminal Help. > > And when using Calculator's menus, the menu bar gets a stutter: > Calculat Calculator Mode Help. > > 4. The application or window title and the title bar are redundant, and > sometimes inconsistent too. > > For example, when that Calculator window is open, its title bar says > "Calculator", and the menu bar pointlessly repeats "Calculator". > When a Banshee window is open, its title bar says "Banshee Media > Player", and the menu bar repeats "Banshee Media Player". When a > PolicyKit authentication alert is open, its title bar says > "Authenticate", and the menu bar repeats "Authenticate". > > Other windows are inconsistent. For example, Firefox's title bar > says "Mozilla Firefox", but the menu bar disagrees, saying > "Firefox Web Browser". Shotwell's title bar says "Shotwell", but > the menu bar says "Shotwell Photo Manager". Most amusingly, if you > open a presentation in LibreOffice and then open an accompanying > spreadsheet, the title bar says "LibreOffice Calc" while the menu > bar says "LibreOffice Impress". > > There are two paragraphs in the "The Unity Menu" document that I agree > with. One says: "The top edge of the screen has some advantages for fine > mouse pointer targeting." But that is true only when you know where the > target area is before you begin. The other says: "Screen space is > extremely valuable, and we prefer to use pixels for content that is > unique to the focused task, or wider awareness, than for chrome." Menus > are unique to the focused task. Application names are not. > > I have a simple proposal to fix these problems: The application title > should be removed from Unity's menu bar. I'm reliably informed that this > would be extremely low risk, in that it would involve changing two lines > of code. > > - -- > mpt > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iEYEARECAAYFAk1/ozwACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecoCFgCfYeqr3KknjJAgCWe5up2VJRo+ > Ts0AniZYG361yeS762p/lXy8wPTEWXEA > =EZQQ > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana > Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
