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>>Then again, the start menu could be further away in the contextual >>dropdown menus. Task-related things first and general purpose shortcuts >>next. If the contextual menus were circular, this could maybe work. > >Or to the upper left, when the usual context menu opens to the lower right? >theres a lot of unused space there. Yeah, a good idea. >Circular menu's would be cool too, though harder to design & customize. Probably. >The hiding could be a lot more intelligent, like counting the times the user >has accessed the folders in the last 30 days or so and arranging them >in a corresponding order, the busiest to the top, etc. Maybe programs >that one does not use at all in a month don't even deserve to be shown. Then again, auto-hiding the stuff in the Start menu is just a workaround. The main question remains: why there has to be so much stuff in the Start menu? Isn't it supposed to be a quick program starter menu? Why do program install themselves inside subfolders of subfolders (like Start -> Programs -> Adobe -> Adobe Photoshop (folder) -> Adobe Photoshop (shortcut))? Start menu clutter is just a part of the bigger usability problem in Windows: people don't learn to use the Windows file system even effectively as easily as they do learn the Mac file system logic. So, there is a _need_ to put shortcuts to all the essential stuff in the Start menu, because it's not likely that people find the files from the hard disk (as they do on Mac-side). And because all the programs install all those shortcuts in the Start menu (inside subfolders), it becomes cluttered. Yeah, I know you can clean the menu yourself, but do you actually do it? I always think that "I'll do it tomorrow", and I never actually do it. I hate to manually clean the garbage the computer does, when it tries to be helpful. :) ---> jab | commie | http://commie.oy.com "Less is moo" -- The Holy Mad Cow
