Does GNOME Terminal need a UI update?

[Justine O'Neil <justine_oneil zoho com>]

Hey all,

I want to get my feet wet contributing to GNOME.

One thing I have noticed is that the terminal app hasn't gotten the same UI attention as many other GNOME apps.  I personally turn off the menu bar so that it looks more like the other GNOME apps.  I don't miss it [the menu bar], in fact it looks strange to me now whenever I see it.

Some of the functionality exposed in the menu bar is duplicated in the application menu.  Here is a non-exhaustive list:

* "File/Open Terminal" is exposed in the app menu as "Open new terminal"

* "Edit/Preferences" and exposes the same preference dialog as "Preferences" in the app menu

* "File/New Profile" and "Edit/Profile Preferences" are exposed under Profile tab in the preferences dialog 

Other functionality exposed in the menu bar might be exposed other ways.  For example, text size and terminal dimensions could be exposed in a popover menu like the icon size setting in Nautilus.

There are a few challenges inherited from the use of control sequences in POSIX terminals.  Ctrl-Shift-C for copy and Ctrl-Shift-V for paste are non-obvious variants of the standard Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V motif.  The only way to learn these shortcuts is through the hint in the menu bar.

Thoughts?  I would be willing to work on this.  I am good with C and I am learning Vala, which GNOME Terminal is written in.  I'm still learning GLib.  I'm not really a designer, but I know some basic principles and I have studied the HIG.

Cheers!

Justine

P.S.  Since this is my first post to the list, I suppose I should give a little introduction. I am a 23 year-old young lady going to university to study science and computing.  I am getting my minor in computer science, but I have been programming on and off for the last decade.  I like to cook, and I love to argue passionately about things that matter to me.  And of course, I love FLOSS and GNOME!