Re: [desktop] why kde and gnome's menu situation sucks
On 10/24/2002 4:41 AM, Emile van Bergen at emile-deb@evbergen.xs4all.nl
wrote:
> One more thing to keep an eye on is grouping of items. Of course this
> can be done by creating hierarchies like you suggest, but as has been
> pointed out numerous times, that can be very bad from an ergonomic
> standpoint. An alternative could be to replace the group container with
> a thin separator line.
>
Well, hierarchies that are too deeply nested or with confusing group names
are bad. Shallow nested folders with clear, descriptive labels (and names)
seems to be a good solution though.
> Anyway, some ordering is needed, and that's something where RedHat's
> menu fails miserably now, see
> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=41285&cid=4373541 and the parent
> post that links to the screenshot of the menu why I think so.
>
Heh. You are right. I read that post, and checked it with my Red Hat 8.0
set up, and Red Hat does have a confusing mess there.
Let me say this in their defense. Simplifying the menu design is brutally
difficult, in part, becase Linux and any GUI is runs is sooooo configurable.
My guess is that Red Hat created all those extra folder names just to avoid
having one folder called "Preferences" that when opened, displayed a massive
list of choices three virtual feet high.
Basically, Red Hat chose to have a more complicated layout in order to
satisfy the traditional Linux user who wants to access all those various
configurations settings, applications, etc. However, this sacrifices
simplicity for the newly arrived Window user.
It is very hard to balance these two off against each other well, and yet
keep a simple and elegant menu hierarchy design.
Cheers,
Luke Seubert
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