Re: Proposal: gnome-main-menu for inclusion in GNOME 2.18

[Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

I'm in total agreement here.  I've used the slab menu which is included
in Ubuntu.  For those who want to make useful comments about slab as it
compares with the other menu setups can "apt-get install
gnome-main-menu" on Edgy.  

My personal feeling is that it does seem kind of slow.  I find it hard
to find applications when using the application browser.  It could be
that I'm very used to segmented menu structures.  Segmented menu
structure is also used in Windows where if you go start->applications
you see a segmented menu structure where every category as it's own menu
space instead of a browser style interface.  In this case, I don't think
it's the same as windows.  I understand there was user testing done but
I would think that this is a big departure from the windows interface
enough to be considered confusing.  Perhaps it's an improvement in which
everything uses a browser interface, I don't know.

If this was used in GNOME it would be hard for those who use GNOME daily
(as I do) to switch gears at first to using this interface.  Perhaps
windows users would appreciate the switch but I think regular GNOME
users might find it a little hard to change.

Personally, if it looks like that people like the change I don't mind as
long as we have a backwards compatible way to use the old menu system.
Just because you change it doesn't mean you can't continue using the old
way for those of us who have learned to use GNOME in that way.  This
also creates problems for systems administrators when you change UIs as
it requires re-training for it's users which costs time and money to use
the new system unless you can provide a method to let users migrate to
the new system over time.

My two cents.

sri

On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 16:01 -0300, Germ�Po�ama�rote:
> On Fri, 2006-10-20 at 11:27 -0700, Rob Adams wrote:
> > One question about slab:
> > 
> > Why does it start an entirely separate program when you select "More
> > Applications"?  On my system, this has a 2-3 second delay when pressing
> > this button the first time, and about slightly more than 1 second on
> > subsequent presses.
> 
> I've been using it for a couple of weeks. And I must say it feels slow.
> The fist time in a session it takes between 2-4 second to appear the
> menu. If I press 'More applications...', it takes a little more.  Also, 
> the right pane in "Application browser" is painted twice (at least
> two are clearly visible).
> 
> When the menu is in memory, it improves the responsiveness, but still
> is easy to see it flickering when the 'Application browser' is loaded.
> 
> After a while, it read the whole menu again, getting the user experience
> slow again.
> 
> Another issue happens when you have tagged more than 6 applications
> as favorites.  In the session you tagged the applications, is possible
> to see all your favorites applications right there.  In a new session,
> only are shown the first six applications selected.  Not good in terms
> of consistency.
> 
> So, for the day use, I must to install also the stock menu applet,
> because it is more responsiveness when you need to run a non
> favorite application.
> 
> Don't forget the 'fast' part in 'fast, better, beatiful' that we
> are /selling/.  gnome-main-menu is pretty beatufil, but slow, which
> means a regression in term of user experience.
> 
> I'm sure it can be improved and I hope so.
> 
> Regards,
> 
-- 
Sri Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>