Re: Menubar (and Empty Default Desktop) Proposals for GNOME 2.10

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Nigel Tao">

> The less-small proposal is to add a "Places" menu as a sibling of the
> "Applications" and "Actions" menu.  This is inspired by what Ubuntu has
> already done (screenshot: http://osdir.com/screenshots/gnome2.8/35.gif,
> source code: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gnome-panel/) to
> further a document-centric (rather than application-centric) way to use my
> computer.  Unlike previous File Menu Applets and Nautilus Menu Applets, on
> activation this one simply opens the nautilus (spatial) window for e.g.
> the Home folder, rather than presenting an unwieldy (IMHO) series of
> drill-down sub-menus (requiring special tricks like
> double-click-on-menu-item-to-open-nautilus).

This is exactly where we want to go in Ubuntu land, too. :-) The 'Computer'
change was done pretty late in our cycle, and was a bit of a snap decision,
after some further design work, I came to the same conclusion as you for the
Places menu. Here's where I'd like to go:

  Applications  Places  System

(It would be great if someone could come up with a better name for 'System',
because it's pretty lame. 'Actions' is lamer, however.)

> The places in the "Places" menu would be:
> Home [see note 1]
> Desktop [see note 1]
> Computer
> Network
> Trash
> Templates [see note 2]
> ---
> Floppy
> CD-ROM
> and other Drives and Volumes [see note 3]
> ---
> GtkFileChooser bookmark 1
> GtkFileChooser bookmark 2
> and other gtk-bookmarks
> ---
> Recent Documents [see note 4]
> Open Location... [see note 5]

Exactly! We have even been considering web bookmarks as part of this menu,
but it's already getting long. The dynamic sections (drives and filechooser
lists) are of particular interest - I wish we'd been able to do those for
Warty. :-)

I don't think Trash is necessary, because you already have the desktop icon
or trash applet. Templates is iffy. Don't want to have icons for all the
pre-seeded content directories in ~ (things like 'Pictures', 'Templates',
etc). Not sure about Open Location, but I could be convinced. ;-)

> Things not in the menu:
> File-system root (file:///)

How about a 'Browse Filesystem' item? I've been debating whether it should
go in the Applications > System Tools menu or the Places menu.

> Search for Files (it stays in Actions, if not superseded by Beagle)

I think this is Places worthy, particularly if 'Actions' becomes 'System'
(or similar).

Thanks,

- Jeff

-- 
Ubuntu in Mataró, Spain: December 5th-18th      http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
 
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