Re: Menu...

[Ian Campbell <ijc25 cam ac uk>]

I did implement a simple example of what this discussion led too. 

Basically menu items are defined as objects with properties.  These
objects could have their properties overriden, ie by a user. Properties
consist of things like: the command to execute, a title, the parent menu,
if the item should be shown, icon etc.  This way a user can customise the
system menu simply by overiding the properties in their own menu
directory, without needing to touch the system menu.

For example I can remove a menu item by setting the show property to
false, or I can move it to another menu by changing the parent menu
property, etc.

The objects also support inheritance, so you can put apps into
'catagories' ie apps.editors.emacs and apps.editors.gedit. this way
setting a property on apps.editors can effect both emacs and gedit, ie I
can set all sub-items to appear in a particular menu (unless they override
it), or I can set a default icon for all editors.

Of course the menu's themselves are also a type of object and have similar
propeties, like their parent menu, an icon, etc. So you can move entire
menu's around too, by changing their parent.

The example code I wrote simply parses all the files in the system and
user directories and uses them to build the menu, it allows you to browse 
(but not change) the properties of the objects as well as see how the
final menu is built. 
 
I have to admit it's been several weeks since I touched the code, mainly
because I figured no-one would be all that interested till after 1.0 was
released, but if anyone want's to see what has been done, just ask. 

Cheers,
Ian

On Sun, 14 Mar 1999, Daniel Burrows wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 15, 1999 at 07:53:04AM -0000, David Puryear was heard to say:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I think I mentioned this a while a go, but gnome-menu has same feature still.
> > This feature is editing of systems-menu by joe average user, which you can't. I
> > know this is what was intended, but as joe average user, I should be able to
> > have my own custom copy of system-menu. This way, if I want to edit it, I don't
> > have to be a root. 
> > 
> > IMHO, any UI that a joe average user uses should be chaneable by that user. And
> > I consider gnome-menu to be an UI.
> > 
> >         Thanks,
> >         David
> 
>   There was a thread a while [ a long while ] ago called
> "My Little Wish List for Gnome" (I think).  It turned into a discussion of
> how to design menus, and I believe we ended up with a consensus about a possible
> implementation that solves this very cleanly.  Unfortunately, I haven't heard
> about it for a couple of months and I didn't get around to doing anything with
> it.  I know someone was working on it.  Has it gone anywhere?
> 
>   I think that it is the Right Way of handling this at some future point and
> if it's stalled we should perhaps revive it now? ;-)
> 
>   Daniel