Re: GWP and 'the foot'

[sungod <as387 yfn ysu edu>]

J. Patrick Narkinsky wrote:
> 
> I just had the opportunity to check out the latest sources for GWP from
> CVS -- first off, for those of you who haven't taken a look lately, do so.
> These guys have been coding like crazy.
> 
> One thing that they did which I REALLY like is they put a Macintosh-like
> 'gnome foot' icon on the left-most side of their menubar with some common
> utility functions under it.
> 
> For example, this menu in GWP has:
>         About...
>         Preferences...
>         ----
>         Quit
> 
> I REALLY like this as an UI idea.  First, it clears up a lot of the
> ambiguity about what to do with the "File" menu in applications where it
> is not appropriate (e.g. games).  Secondly, I think that, in this
> approach, the distinction between documents and applications is cleared.
> What would happen under the file menu would save the FILE, Close under the
> File menu would close the file.  Close (or more likely exit) under the
> 'foot menu' would exit the app.
> 
> I would like to just throw out the idea that we try to make this a
> standard.  IMHO, it would be the kind of nifty GUI feature that attracts
> people to an environment.

this proposal was greatly fought over on gnome-gui-list a few months
ago, and as it's had more chances to be tested and coded, it may be time
to re-open the discussion of scope-based menus (separate file &
application [gnome-foot]) menus.

the first step in that discussion should be to answer the following
question, which never got adequately answered the first time around and
needs to be addressed this time _before_ we can reach a concensus on
many gnome ui issues:

which is more important, solid design or similarity to existing gui's?
and to what extent?

for those reading this on gnome-list, this is the sort of thing i'd like
to see hashed out in gnome-gui-list, so if you're interested, fire off a
subscribe message and join in. for those of us already working on it,
let's get an answer here so we can put it in the guide and use it as a
basis for all future designs.

comments? let's keep them in gnome-gui-list so the real coders can
continue with real gnome issues uninterrupted by our flamewars. :)
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