Konrad Hofbauer wrote:
Dear all,
I just tested 1.6.0beta2, and since a new major version is on its
ways, I'd like to make a careful inquiry about how you would feel
about a fundamental GUI _menu_ structure overhaul?
Well, I guess it makes me feel kind of giddy. ;-)
In my point of view there are a view inconsistencies, and even after
extended use (and cross-platform experience) some entries are still
very not intuitive to me.
I could try to come up with a proposal, but I could also imagine that
it is a delicate topic (and that it is maybe too late for 1.6 anyhow).
There are no fundamental code changes here, so it's not too late in
principle. See below. Sometimes people do get attached to the menu
structure they know, but I think people would also be happy to consider
changes, if they really did improve things, as opposed to just making
them different.
Example of what I mean:
Could the entire "Document" menu not be abandoned and its entries find
a (maybe better) stay in:
Change Tracking -> Tools (or File, together with VC)
Latex Log -> View
Outline -> View
Start Appendix Here -> Insert
Compressed -> File
Settings -> File
There would probably be quite a bit of work and discussion involved to
find a good compromise on what is common on the different platforms
that LyX is made for. If people have a strong opinion on this issue, I
probably would not start touching anything.
See below, again.
I could also only help on a conceptual level, and would need the help
of a developer to do the actual implementation.
You could surely do that yourself. All the menu stuff is in
lib/ui/stdmenus.inc. The syntax is pretty simple. Just play around with
it. Copy stdmenus.inc to newmenus.inc, and then copy default.ui to
testing.ui; change the line:
Include "stdmenus.inc"
to:
Include "newmenus.inc"
and then select testing.ui in Preferences>Look & Feel>User Interface
File. Now you can do what you want, and even post newmenus.inc so people
can try it out.
Richard
