gnome global menu
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There is a rather new project out there, that customizes the look of gnome-panel and isn't included in Trisquel yet. I'm talking about this beauty. It helps gain more vertical space on screen, replaces window list (and does a better job than window selector).
Generally, one gains a much cleaner interface, it is even possible to use just one thin panel on top and remove anything else to let the applications maximize to almost-fullscreen. It will also help the ones, who wish to make their GNU/Linux more like MacOSX.
The program is licensed under GNU GPL and available through ppas for ubuntu lucid, so I'd like to suggest it for inclusion into repositories at some point. I really enjoy the way it affects the whole desktop environment, even though it works only for gtk apps right now (and for Firefox through an add-on).
Want to provide a link to the project homepage?
On Mon, 2011-03-07 at 00:20 +0100, name at domain wrote:
> There is a rather new project out there, that customizes the look of
> gnome-panel and isn't included in Trisquel yet. I'm talking about this
> beauty. It helps gain more vertical space on screen, replaces window list
> (and does a better job than window selector).
>
> Generally, one gains a much cleaner interface, it is even possible to use
> just one thin panel on top and remove anything else to let the applications
> maximize to almost-fullscreen. It will also help the ones, who wish to make
> their GNU/Linux more like MacOSX.
>
> The program is licensed under GNU GPL and available through ppas for ubuntu
> lucid, so I'd like to suggest it for inclusion into repositories at some
> point. I really enjoy the way it affects the whole desktop environment, even
> though it works only for gtk apps right now (and for Firefox through an
> add-on).
I looked it up myself. http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/
If this menu system doesn't have any serious drawbacks I too would
recommend including it.
In fact I would go further and suggest that this could be the default
for Trisquel which would give Trisquel a unique look which would help to
differentiate it.
On Mon, 2011-03-07 at 09:34 +0800, Daemonax wrote:
> Want to provide a link to the project homepage?
>
> On Mon, 2011-03-07 at 00:20 +0100, name at domain wrote:
> > There is a rather new project out there, that customizes the look of
> > gnome-panel and isn't included in Trisquel yet. I'm talking about this
> > beauty. It helps gain more vertical space on screen, replaces window list
> > (and does a better job than window selector).
> >
> > Generally, one gains a much cleaner interface, it is even possible to use
> > just one thin panel on top and remove anything else to let the applications
> > maximize to almost-fullscreen. It will also help the ones, who wish to make
> > their GNU/Linux more like MacOSX.
> >
> > The program is licensed under GNU GPL and available through ppas for ubuntu
> > lucid, so I'd like to suggest it for inclusion into repositories at some
> > point. I really enjoy the way it affects the whole desktop environment, even
> > though it works only for gtk apps right now (and for Firefox through an
> > add-on).
>
>
> I looked it up myself. http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/
>
> If this menu system doesn't have any serious drawbacks I too would
> recommend including it.
It has, the menu would behave like it does in Mac OS.
Having the window menu outside the window is plain stupid, it has
always been one of the trademark design flaws of Mac OS. If you are
working with a window (placed anyway in the screen, even in a secondary
screen), you will have to go all the way to the up left corner to hit
the menu. Working with many graphical applications you will already
have the cursor inside the window, so the menu should be there.
It puzzles me that macos, which made a reputation among designers, ever
pulled that off, since designers tend to have several huge screens,
which makes the problem worse. I suppose that is the reason this kind
of users have to remember dozens of key combinations, to avoid the menu.
It is also a less intuitive system, it breaks the visual connection
between the menu and its window, and clicking on windows to change the
menu can be confusing. And it would be much worse in Trisquel since we
have several widget libraries (gtk, qt...) and any menu change would
need to modify them all to achieve consistency.
It is such a bad idea no wonder why Ubuntu is going for it.
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it maybe a bit confusing at first, but this small feature was what I liked most when I tried a MacBook out (a friend has bought one, despite my warnings about free software being the better and cheaper choice).
El 7 de marzo de 2011 06:51, Rubén Rodríguez
<name at domain>escribió:
>
> > I looked it up myself. http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/
> >
> > If this menu system doesn't have any serious drawbacks I too would
> > recommend including it.
>
> It has, the menu would behave like it does in Mac OS.
>
> Having the window menu outside the window is plain stupid, it has
> always been one of the trademark design flaws of Mac OS. If you are
> working with a window (placed anyway in the screen, even in a secondary
> screen), you will have to go all the way to the up left corner to hit
> the menu. Working with many graphical applications you will already
> have the cursor inside the window, so the menu should be there.
>
>
I don't like that either. And it seems GnomeShell is going to include the
same design[1].
1. http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Tour
--
Luis Felipe López Acevedo
IntrosMedia
I am a translator!
cool, gnomeshell definitely looks interesting too. But I'd have to disagree about you not liking the MacOS way of placing the menu. I find it a really good solution, as I'm always trying to maximize the vertical visible space on my monitor. Yes, when windows are small I've got to move the mouse all the way to the top left to use the menu, but it's not a big job and makes every application window look that much nicer. Also I rarely ever use the menubar, so it only feels appropriate to have it out of the way for the most part.
Apple may be an unethical company well on par with Microsoft, but when it comes to design, they are at the very top, there is just no competition available, that's how good their visual design for everything is.
> Yes, when windows are small I've got to move the mouse all the
> way to the top left to use the menu, but it's not a big job and makes
> every application window look that much nicer.
It may be the case for you, but users with high resolution screens
and/or dual displays would certainly hate it. Also, I don't know if the
windows would look nicer, but breaking the visual connection between the
program and its menu is not cool at all.
> Apple may be an unethical company well on par with Microsoft, but
> when it comes to design, they are at the very top, there is just no
> competition available, that's how good their visual design for
> everything is.
No, they are not. Their usability guidelines get thrown out the window
every time they need to shell something cool. That's how they ended up
having up to four GUI simultaneous styles for different pieces of
MacOS, despite being a closed environment. What a mess.
They even do that with physical devices, as changes tend to be
perceived as improvements even if they are not. They prefer "cool" to
"usable", so you have that incredibly annoying -but cool- iPod wheel
that would work a lot better if it was replaced by actual buttons.
They do some good products -if you throw away the proprietary
software-, I own a big and expensive MacPro which I bought for
Trisquel development and compilation, but I'm glad I lost the damned
"mighty mouse" it came with, because it was unusable due to the lack of
physical feedback from real buttons. They fixed it by removing all
remaining buttons in the current "magic mouse", and I bet they will one
day sell an improved "epic mouse, now with buttons!". ¬¬
I think I agree with Ruben. I can just imagine the amount of mouse/pointer travel involved with this. It seems like a good idea, but not sure its practical.
This is an exciting concept though. I think having different applications for each task is not intuitive. A way of eliminating having to open and close many applications would be great, this looks like it could be a part of the solution.
I also wondered why Ubuntu introduced a lot of changes that are not user-friendly or intuitive, for example moving the minimise, maximise and close buttons to the left of the window frame and having the applications menus on the top left of the desktop.
I've come to the conclusion that some operating system developers are prepared to sacrifice ease of use, to have a "distinctive" look and feel. Thats crazy in my opinion, but there it is.
Actually, I remember old user-interface studies that show that the corners of your screen are the points you reach the most rapidly (you just have to throw your mouse without any moderation).
Nevertheless, the loss of the "visual connection" (as you call it), the fact that many applications do not work with this menu yet and the fact that most new users come from Windows make me against the idea of this menu as the default choice in Trisquel. Having it in the repository would be nice... but let us wait for Ubuntu doing the packaging work.
To maximize the screen space usage, I run full-screen applications on separate workspaces. Since I use combinations of keys to quickly choose one of these workspaces and always put Emacs on the first one, Evolution on the second, Liferea on the third, Firefox on the fourth, etc., that is a very efficient approach (no use of the mouse) that requires no thinking after a few days.
> Having it in the repository would be nice... but let us wait for
> Ubuntu doing the packaging work.
Oh, don't worry, they are on it already, so it will be an option. But
we will not change the default desktop design/behaviour, so we will
expend no effort on giving that option an extra support.
Looks interesting. I don't know if I'd necessarily like to see it be the default in Trisquel, but it would be nice to have it available.
Having a further look, it looks like some extra work would be needed on
it for it to be viable as a default alternative. It doesn't work
properly with Firefox because Firefox apparently doesn't use GTK
correctly, but it does work with Epiphany. Would probably need a bunch
of application specific hacks before it could be used as a default
unfortunately.
On Mon, 2011-03-07 at 06:31 +0100, name at domain wrote:
> Looks interesting. I don't know if I'd necessarily like to see it be the
> default in Trisquel, but it would be nice to have it available.
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there is a plugin for Firefox, which I'm using right now. It is located here. However this only duplicates the menu bar on top of the screen, you will also need this addon to hide the original one. A bit hacky, but works perfectly.
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As always, Ruben is totally ace when it comes to matters of design. No, we don't need a Mac OS-like menu. One of the things I like most about Trisquel is that its interface is so completely spot-on; no BS.
Agreed, beautiful in it's simplicity and usefulness, and doesn't get in your way while intuitive.
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