Re: [Usability] New Menubars

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Anton, everyone,

I really like the new menubars idea. Definitely worth exploring some
more.


> I'd like to point you to the approach taken by the Ubiquity project
> (see:
> 
> http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/
> 
> ), which in turn takes ideas from Quicksilver and Launchbar. They try
> to make a usable CLI with a visual treatment that very much resembles
> your mockup, just with a more generalized reach.
> 
> They solve many of the usability problems found in traditional CLIs,
> although they don't tackle your stated problem of trying to retrieve
> recently used commands and store them in a "visual cache". The
> solution to this problem found in your proposal is a nice feature, and
> it could be a good improvement over a complete CLI system for the
> Gnome Shell built following the Ubiquity and Quicksilver models.

There's a lot of interest in ways to combine command (text) and
graphical interfaces at the moment - an interest that I share. There's
definitely an advantage there for repetitive actions, as well as some
exciting possibilities around natural language input.

Anton - if you're thinking about how you might go about embedding a CLI
in the menubar, it might be worth considering the Cimi's ideas [1] about
Do-ifying GTK 3.0. It would be exciting to see a convergence of your
ideas and theirs (at the very least, for the sake of consistency across
the desktop).

Allan

[1] http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2009/01/31/do-ifying-gtk-30/