-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Arian van Gend wrote on 09/11/10 12:16: > > The File menu should probably not be used on a lot of applications, > since they don't do anything with files. > The calculator can easily do without it, for example. > Besides, the File menu has been overloaded with actions that have > nothing to do with files anyway, and should therefore at least be > cleaned up.
As a menu title, "File" is not a noun. It's a verb, just like "Edit", "View", "Go", "Insert", and "Format" are. So it's not necessarily about dealing with files. It's about filing or organizing whatever primary object the program deals with: Web pages, e-mail messages, calculations, pictures, music, games, or whatever. > As long as for example in the case of Rythmbox, 'Music' would not be an > overloaded menu (doesn't practically everything it does have to do with > music?), it would be an acceptable name for a menu. But that would mean > that closing an app, printing, and whatever other non music-related > actions should NOT be there. As you suggest, Rhythmbox having a "Music" menu doesn't make sense, because almost all the items in its first four menus are about music. Only some of them, however, are about filing and organizing. As for "closing an app", the main reason any program has a menu item for that is that the original Macintosh couldn't multitask, so people needed to manually "quit" an app before launching a new one. Designers have been cargo-culting the "Quit" or "Exit" item ever since -- and putting it in the first menu only because there was no better place for it. Some applications have already retired the "Quit" item, for example Evince and Epiphany. We're taking another step to phasing it out with our sound menu design: quitting a music player is not something users should care about, but rather something that the player does automatically if it isn't playing when it is closed. >... > 2010/11/9 Walter Wittel <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> >> >> Taking Calculator as an example, I personally prefer "File". Putting >> Copy / Paste / etc. there means I can now no longer look to Edit menu >> on any application to find this common functionality. Might as well >> have Menu 1, Menu 2, etc. because I'll have to open it up to discover >> the functions. >... Agreed, Calculator should have an "Edit" menu. One side-effect of the global menu bar is that it will make silly inconsistencies like that more obvious. - -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkzajioACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecr6xACff0OtxLwiQTTJo/e9kHKJTdg+ f7IAoJCr/Eefat+/yxqCY6vCotulys3f =9k7A -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
