Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread Martin Nordholts
On 08/09/2010 10:51 PM, LightningIsMyName wrote:
 Hello,

 I recently re-read all the GSoC suggestions for 2010, and I found this
 interesting one about making the menus searchable:
 https://sites.google.com/site/gimpwiki/long-term-plans/menu-accesibility

 0. How do we want the search to work? A user can bring a search dialog
 up? Will the search be based on a string? A tree?

No dialogs please.

What about a search field to the right in the menubar, accesible through 
a keyboard shortcut, like Firefox' Ctrl+K?

I imagine it to work like this: The user can type a string, and it will 
be matched against all texts associated with a 
filter/operation/whatever. The title, the description, the short summary 
etc. Typing Dogde should match with Dodge. As you type, you get a 
list (not tree) of hits. Each hit has a preview with the effect on the 
image if applied. 'down, down, return' activates the second matched 
item, like it works in all similar UIs.


 2. We need to define a usable plugin browser. One of the features I'm
 missing the most, is a preview image. Plugins should have an option to
 register a preview image of their effect (probably by having the image's
 binary data embedded in them). This also relates to the feature request
 of having a logo script browser...

I don't think registering a fixed preview image is good enough, it 
should be a preview of the effect if applied to the current image.


 3. Will plugins also have a category (in addition to a menu location)?
 How should we organize the plugins?

With a good search mechanism, organizing plug-ins becomes less 
important, right? It should be possible to have descriptions good enough 
to avoid us from having additional tags.

Regards,
Martin


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread LightningIsMyName
Hello,

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Martin Nordholts ense...@gmail.com wrote:

  2. We need to define a usable plugin browser. One of the features I'm
  missing the most, is a preview image. Plugins should have an option to
  register a preview image of their effect (probably by having the image's
  binary data embedded in them). This also relates to the feature request
  of having a logo script browser...

 I don't think registering a fixed preview image is good enough, it

Believe me, I really want a dynamic preview on the current image :-)
But, it's not practical as some plugins take way too long to operate -
trying to create a preview on the current image might take way too
long to be any good.

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:31 AM, David Gowers 00a...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:21 AM, LightningIsMyName
 lightningismyn...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello,

 I recently re-read all the GSoC suggestions for 2010, and I found this
 interesting one about making the menus searchable:
 https://sites.google.com/site/gimpwiki/long-term-plans/menu-accesibility

 As far as I know, menus are searchable and the best example is the keyboard
 shortcuts dialog which has a searchbox to find the GIMP action you'd like to
 use.

 However, that action is not immediately activateable.
 What I personally envision is something like the completion dialog
 that you can find in GTKTreeViews (for example, typing something in
 when the file list in a file selection dialog is focused, offers you a
 choice of the possible items. And upon selection from that sub-list,
 the file is immediately chosen.)

  So I asked on #gimp and I was told there was a discussion on IRC about
 finding a more usable replacement to the plugin browser.

 The reason I made the description above is that the plugin browser is
 very limited.. you cannot activate non-plugin menu items (for example,
 I'd like to be able to access 'scale image' and 'scale layer' via a
 search -- I don't use them enough to warrant keyboard shortcuts, but
 enough that some acceleration is warranted.
 The same thing goes for virtually all GIMP-GAP operations).

Sorry for my bad phrasing of the question - let me rephrase it: what
is left other than exposing the searchbox from there?
The searchbox there allows to find non-plugin actions, and these are
very neatly organized under several categories. When you search, the
categories are already expanded so you can see all the results,
organized, right away.

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:31 AM, David Gowers 00a...@gmail.com wrote:
 request of
 having a logo script browser...

 Well, if we did what you outline here, how would Script-Fu scripts
 handle the necessary embedding of binary data (I don't mean to imply
 that they couldn't, just that I do not know exactly how well they can
 handle this kind of binary string literal).

What I suggest, it is possible to embed binary data in script-fu
scripts, but it's not easy/fun/simple. What I suggest is that as a
part of the refactoring process of the plugin system, we will allow
procedures to register a sample procedure. This procedure will be
called once to generate a preview image. But this procedure is
probably a bad idea (since generating the preview will take time, and
this can be long...)
The other option is to ship example images with script-fu scripts and
to allow them to return a pointer to that image for their preview.
This sounds more reasonable to me.

One of the things we should remember is that we should still have some
sort of seperation between the plugin/script browser and between the
general procedure browser. Because if we want things like preview for
every action, it would be rather useless to have previews for internal
operations such as raise layer.

~LightningIsMyName
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread David Gowers
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:58 PM, LightningIsMyName
lightningismyn...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello,

 On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Martin Nordholts ense...@gmail.com wrote:

  2. We need to define a usable plugin browser. One of the features I'm
  missing the most, is a preview image. Plugins should have an option to
  register a preview image of their effect (probably by having the image's
  binary data embedded in them). This also relates to the feature request
  of having a logo script browser...

 I don't think registering a fixed preview image is good enough, it

 Believe me, I really want a dynamic preview on the current image :-)
 But, it's not practical as some plugins take way too long to operate -
 trying to create a preview on the current image might take way too
 long to be any good.
Create the previews in an idle handler (ie. let the user select the
operation even when the preview is not rendered, and cancel any
pending preview rendering when a selection is made)
We could combine this with the stored previews idea: show the stored
preview with an overlay that indicates rendering of the preview for
the current image is in progress...


 On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:31 AM, David Gowers 00a...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:21 AM, LightningIsMyName
 lightningismyn...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello,

 I recently re-read all the GSoC suggestions for 2010, and I found this
 interesting one about making the menus searchable:
 https://sites.google.com/site/gimpwiki/long-term-plans/menu-accesibility


 The reason I made the description above is that the plugin browser is
 very limited.. you cannot activate non-plugin menu items (for example,
 I'd like to be able to access 'scale image' and 'scale layer' via a
 search -- I don't use them enough to warrant keyboard shortcuts, but
 enough that some acceleration is warranted.
 The same thing goes for virtually all GIMP-GAP operations).

 Sorry for my bad phrasing of the question - let me rephrase it: what
 is left other than exposing the searchbox from there?

Supporting '*' wildcards would be helpful IMO, but I agree that the
shortcuts search is pretty adequate for this, when connected to
activating the chosen action.

 The searchbox there allows to find non-plugin actions, and these are
 very neatly organized under several categories. When you search, the
 categories are already expanded so you can see all the results,
 organized, right away.
That aspect is certainly good.




 What I suggest, it is possible to embed binary data in script-fu
 scripts, but it's not easy/fun/simple. What I suggest is that as a
 part of the refactoring process of the plugin system, we will allow
 procedures to register a sample procedure. This procedure will be
 called once to generate a preview image. But this procedure is
 probably a bad idea (since generating the preview will take time, and
 this can be long...)
 The other option is to ship example images with script-fu scripts and
 to allow them to return a pointer to that image for their preview.
 This sounds more reasonable to me.
Yes. However IMO, if we do that, we should not stop at previews for
script-fu. We should provide a directory for general storage of these
previews for any plugins. That way,  it is much easier for ordinary
users to provide improved previews for their most used plugins.


 One of the things we should remember is that we should still have some
 sort of seperation between the plugin/script browser and between the
 general procedure browser. Because if we want things like preview for
 every action, it would be rather useless to have previews for internal
 operations such as raise layer.

Certainly; there are actually four classes of actions:
1. actions owned by plugins, which have a menu item
2. actions owned by the GIMP core, which have a menu item (eg 'Raise layer')
3. actions owned by the GIMP core, which don't have a menu item (eg.
'Increase Aspect')
Mostly we will want to search the union of 1 and 2, IMO.
And sometimes, we will want to search 3 (eg. I would use this for
tweaking the color picker radius, setting the brush scale to default
(=1.0))
. That  is possible without any need to change current code.

I would like to point out anyway, that the PDB browser and the current
keyboard shortcut dialog search, search different things...
PDB browser searches PDB entries, KB shortcut dialog search searches
action internal names+ user-visible names. It's definitely important
to make that distinction apparent to the user, so that they don't
expect to see PDB entries popping up in the action search box which is
the subject of current discussion.

David
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread Jon Senior
On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:27:59 +0200
Martin Nordholts ense...@gmail.com wrote:
 I don't think registering a fixed preview image is good enough, it 
 should be a preview of the effect if applied to the current image.

Just my 2c. The problem with a preview of the current image is that it
is not controlled and so won't necessarily show off the effect.
Imagine a gaussian blur (as a simple example). If the current image is
a 200px x 200px line drawing then the default settings of a blur (5px
IIRC) will produce a noticeable effect in the preview. If the image
being edited is a 35MPix digital photo, then it won't be obvious at all
what the effect is doing in the preview. Rather than apply the default
settings of the effect to the current image, why not allow the author
to create the demonstration image (which will show off real use of the
effect), but forcing it to be based on a specific image (Wilber springs
to mind). That way it's using a known base image but can be tweaked to
provide maximum visual effect for the preview?

Jon
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread Øyvind Kolås
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Jon Senior j...@restlesslemon.co.uk wrote:
 On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:27:59 +0200
 Martin Nordholts ense...@gmail.com wrote:
 I don't think registering a fixed preview image is good enough, it
 should be a preview of the effect if applied to the current image.

..
 to create the demonstration image (which will show off real use of the
 effect), but forcing it to be based on a specific image (Wilber springs
 to mind). That way it's using a known base image but can be tweaked to
 provide maximum visual effect for the preview?

This is how I would see something like this added for GEGL operations:

The desired end result would be to have a directory where previews of
the results of gegl-operations can be found. Probably just pngs with
the same name as the op it is a preview for. During the build of
operations that come with GEGL a small set of illustrative images
would be provided. By default if no extra work is done in the
operation the default image will be used as input with default
parameters. If this does not provide a good preview of the operation
the op can add a string to GeglOperationClass containing the XML
needed to apply the effect well to one (or more) of the sample images.
These images would also be used in the GEGL documentation
http://gegl.org/operations.html

-- 
«The future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed»
                                                 -- William Gibson
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread yahvuu
On 10.08.2010 00:16, Jon Nordby wrote:
 On 9 August 2010 23:42, yahvuuyah...@gmail.com  wrote:
 Just a quick and cheap thought:
 if you're talking about search, that means i'm already using the keyboard to 
 type in
 what i want to do, and then we're only one step away from a command line 
 within GIMP.
 What do you call the existing scheme and python interpreters in GIMP?
 I'd say that we already have this, and have had it for years.

What's makes ubiquity so interesting, is that it is based on natural language
(localized!), with a focus on ease of learning and reduced amount of typing.
That's a different beast from a python shell.

I think it explores some interesting ideas which might also be applicable for 
GIMP,
so here's a better link to showcase how it works:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Latest_Ubiquity_User_Tutorial


regards,
yahvuu
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread Martin Nordholts
On 08/10/2010 10:28 AM, LightningIsMyName wrote:
 On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Martin Nordholtsense...@gmail.com  wrote:

 2. We need to define a usable plugin browser. One of the features I'm
 missing the most, is a preview image. Plugins should have an option to
 register a preview image of their effect (probably by having the image's
 binary data embedded in them). This also relates to the feature request
 of having a logo script browser...

 I don't think registering a fixed preview image is good enough, it

 Believe me, I really want a dynamic preview on the current image :-)
 But, it's not practical as some plugins take way too long to operate -
 trying to create a preview on the current image might take way too
 long to be any good.

Just because some plug-ins are too slow for live preview doesn't mean we 
shouldn't have it for simpler plug-ins. Besides, we can have it for slow 
plug-ins as well, we just do the preview calculations asyncronously. And 
the previews will be small, so it won't take that much time even on slow 
plug-ins.

  / Martin


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-10 Thread Martin Nordholts
On 08/10/2010 11:57 AM, David Gowers wrote:
 Create the previews in an idle handler

Just some nit-picking:
If you mean an idle handler in the event loop, that's a bad idea. We 
should do image processing in a separate thread to keep the UI 
responsive at all times. You could argue that if we always do image 
processing in small chunks, it won't be a problem, but that prevents us 
from more freely tweaking the chunk size. The bigger chunks we do at a 
time, the better we can use the CPU and memory caches.

IMO the current use of the main loop for image processing in GIMP needs 
to stop. The migration to GEGL will be a good time to fix it.

  / Martin


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus

2010-08-10 Thread Jernej Simončič
On Tuesday, August 10, 2010, 19:32:19, Martin Nordholts wrote:

 Just because some plug-ins are too slow for live preview doesn't mean we
 shouldn't have it for simpler plug-ins. Besides, we can have it for slow
 plug-ins as well, we just do the preview calculations asyncronously. And
 the previews will be small, so it won't take that much time even on slow
 plug-ins.

I really like the way Paint Shop Pro does plug-in previews: by
default, they appear in the plugin settings window (which actually has
two previews side-by-side - current image, and processed image), but
there's also a Preview in image window checkbox next to the preview,
which will show the current settings on the image itself.

Also, when the preview takes too long to compute, a progress bar pops
up with a Cancel button (I think this happens if the calculation is
taking longer than 2 seconds). If you do a preview in the image
window, and then apply the effect without changing anything, the
effect isn't recalculated, but is used as-is.

Another thing that I like in PSP's plugin preview is that when you
drag the preview around, it will never start recalculating the effect
unless you release the mouse button - I hate it how GIMP will
periodically try to update the preview while dragging it, which always
causes me to end up somewhere I didn't want, and will also usually get
the preview stuck in dragging mode even after I released the mouse
pointer. Not updating the preview while the mouse button is held has
another benefit for me: I can easily compare the before/after effect
by simply tapping my mouse button. This is invaluable when cleaning
scanned images, and I need to find a balance between smoothing the
image too much and leaving behind too much moire.

-- 
 Jernej Simončič  http://eternallybored.org/ 

Of two possible events, only the undesired one will occur.
   -- Dude's Law of Duality

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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-09 Thread yahvuu
Hi all,

On 09.08.2010 22:51, LightningIsMyName wrote:
 0. How do we want the search to work? A user can bring a search dialog
 up? Will the search be based on a string? A tree?

Just a quick and cheap thought:
if you're talking about search, that means i'm already using the keyboard to 
type in
what i want to do, and then we're only one step away from a command line within 
GIMP.

Ubiquity is probably the best-designed example of such a command line, for 
firefox:
http://mozillalabs.com/ubiquity/
http://jonoscript.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/retrospective-what-we-learned-from-ubiquity/


regards,
yahvuu
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-09 Thread Cameron Gregory

 G'Day,
I've been thinking a bit about this recently as I can never 
remember where anything is, and
writing script-fu's generally means I have a linear understanding of 
what is available.


How to access it:
From some menus, I don't feel strongly about these. Help - Menu 
Browser .. blah.
Anyway, the way I would use it is a shortcut. Ctrl-F would be the most 
logical choice.
Once a tool wheel is introduced (like in games), there would be a case 
to have it included there.


How does it look:
text box at the top, results underneath.  It's a popup that appears near 
where the cursor was when it was created. (be nice if it was a light 
popup, but anyway).


The results should just search the name of the menu.  See options. It 
should do a case insensitive search like pdb (as the user types), 
including the regex.


The first item should be selected ready to go. Hit enter to select the item

So an example use for me recently would be, I'm looking for the sparkle 
plugin.
Ctrl-F spark enter .  Hitting enter would close the window and call 
the menu.


By default each line would just contain the name of the menu: ie  
Sparkle. But I think it reasonable to add an option to show where the 
item is: eg Sparkle (Filters - Light and Shadow).  By default the 
actual PDB names would not be searchable (eg plugin-sparkle), but no 
doubt that would be a good option, but only if the item appears in a menu.


There is no need to get complicated with tagging, and trees, and sub 
categories.  I believe a basic implementation will show that it's power 
will be in the simplicity.


So what about gegl ops.  My feeling is that it's a menu search, so it 
wouldn't be included by default.  However a simple option to add this 
into the search would be reasonable.



Options:
X Show Menu location
X Dev: Include GEGL operations
X Dev: Include PDB (internal) names


thanks for bringing this up, it's been playing on my mind recently...

Cameron


On 08/10/2010 06:51 AM, LightningIsMyName wrote:

Hello,

I recently re-read all the GSoC suggestions for 2010, and I found this 
interesting one about making the menus searchable: 
https://sites.google.com/site/gimpwiki/long-term-plans/menu-accesibility


As far as I know, menus are searchable and the best example is the 
keyboard shortcuts dialog which has a searchbox to find the GIMP 
action you'd like to use. So I asked on #gimp and I was told there was 
a discussion on IRC about finding a more usable replacement to the 
plugin browser.


So, to get a formal record of this discussion, I'm starting it on the 
mailing list again.


Here are points which should be considered:

0. How do we want the search to work? A user can bring a search dialog 
up? Will the search be based on a string? A tree?


1. GEGL ops should really be integrated in the GIPM menus. As someone 
said, it's like the old script-fu menu - it was wrong. We don't have 
to force the user to remember what's a GEGL op (which will be accessed 
using the GEGL tool) and what's a regular plugin/script.
It's a bit offtopic, but we should find a way to implement gegl 
plugins with a custom GUI, and register them like regular plugins in 
the menus. Having a search that will once point to a plugin and once 
activate the gegl tool, is a very bad idea...


2. We need to define a usable plugin browser. One of the features 
I'm missing the most, is a preview image. Plugins should have an 
option to register a preview image of their effect (probably by having 
the image's binary data embedded in them). This also relates to the 
feature request of having a logo script browser...


3. Will plugins also have a category (in addition to a menu location)? 
How should we organize the plugins? On one hand, it's probably a bad 
idea to continue having plugin authors choose their own category (or 
as it is now - a menu location). Since then you might find yourself 
with dozens of categories (like my-site his-site) and typos 
(artisti and artistic) or redefinitions (art vs. artistic) may 
create more categories.
It's a fact - a bloated category list is good for nothing... So, 
should we limit the categories for plugins?


4. Another option, instead of categories and sub-categories, is 
tagging - like the brushes work in 2.7 (unlike categories - there are 
no sub-levels, and each plugin can be in many places)


Menus in GIMP should become more useful and things should become 
easier to find. But how? Please share your thoughts


~LightningIsMyName


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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-09 Thread Jon Nordby
On 9 August 2010 23:42, yahvuu yah...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,

 On 09.08.2010 22:51, LightningIsMyName wrote:
 0. How do we want the search to work? A user can bring a search dialog
 up? Will the search be based on a string? A tree?

 Just a quick and cheap thought:
 if you're talking about search, that means i'm already using the keyboard to 
 type in
 what i want to do, and then we're only one step away from a command line 
 within GIMP.
What do you call the existing scheme and python interpreters in GIMP?
I'd say that we already have this, and have had it for years.

-- 
Regards Jon Nordby - www.jonnor.com
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Re: [Gimp-developer] Usability of menus (search, gegl ops, ...)

2010-08-09 Thread David Gowers
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:21 AM, LightningIsMyName
lightningismyn...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello,

 I recently re-read all the GSoC suggestions for 2010, and I found this
 interesting one about making the menus searchable:
 https://sites.google.com/site/gimpwiki/long-term-plans/menu-accesibility

 As far as I know, menus are searchable and the best example is the keyboard
 shortcuts dialog which has a searchbox to find the GIMP action you'd like to
 use.

However, that action is not immediately activateable.
What I personally envision is something like the completion dialog
that you can find in GTKTreeViews (for example, typing something in
when the file list in a file selection dialog is focused, offers you a
choice of the possible items. And upon selection from that sub-list,
the file is immediately chosen.)

 So I asked on #gimp and I was told there was a discussion on IRC about
 finding a more usable replacement to the plugin browser.

The reason I made the description above is that the plugin browser is
very limited.. you cannot activate non-plugin menu items (for example,
I'd like to be able to access 'scale image' and 'scale layer' via a
search -- I don't use them enough to warrant keyboard shortcuts, but
enough that some acceleration is warranted.
The same thing goes for virtually all GIMP-GAP operations).


 So, to get a formal record of this discussion, I'm starting it on the
 mailing list again.

 Here are points which should be considered:

 0. How do we want the search to work? A user can bring a search dialog up?
 Will the search be based on a string? A tree?

one or more strings, per your Tags suggestion.

 1. GEGL ops should really be integrated in the GIPM menus. As

What's a GIPM ? :D
 someone said,
 it's like the old script-fu menu - it was wrong. We don't have to force the
 user to remember what's a GEGL op (which will be accessed using the GEGL
 tool) and what's a regular plugin/script.
 It's a bit offtopic, but we should find a way to implement gegl plugins with
 a custom GUI, and register them like regular plugins in the menus. Having a
 search that will once point to a plugin and once activate the gegl tool, is
 a very bad idea...

Though we need to consider, that a GEGL op can do much more than
simply be applied to the image once, destructively. If we make GEGL
ops available in the menus, we should aim to do so in a way which does
not trap us in a corner if, for example, we want to in the future be
able to add that op into the image as a non-destructive effect on the
current layer/layer group.


 2. We need to define a usable plugin browser. One of the features I'm
 missing the most, is a preview image. Plugins should have an option to
 register a preview image of their effect (probably by having the image's
 binary data embedded in them). This also relates to the feature
I agree with you, but believe that we need to be more definite than
that: previews should show clearly the before and after. I favor
GMIC's horizontally split preview style for this -- it avoids wasting
space, and instead of tiling two complete images next to each other,
you get to see half of the image as it would be if it were filtered.
In some cases, the vertically split style may be more appropriate.

request of
 having a logo script browser...

Well, if we did what you outline here, how would Script-Fu scripts
handle the necessary embedding of binary data (I don't mean to imply
that they couldn't, just that I do not know exactly how well they can
handle this kind of binary string literal).

 4. Another option, instead of categories and sub-categories, is tagging -
 like the brushes work in 2.7 (unlike categories - there are no sub-levels,
 and each plugin can be in many places)
The current api allows this, minus the 'no sublevels' criteria, since
a procedure can register in multiple menu paths.

I like the tagging concept, especially if it turns out to be a cheap
solution to menu editing (If I could make my own tag, tag all the
stuff I use most with it, and assign a shortcut to bring up that menu,
that would really help my efficiency...
Or, if I could remove the 'FILE' tag from the 'Print' menu item, I
would no longer have to contend with a menu item that I never ever
use. Note that if we could untag, we need a virtual 'tag' that items
without a tag could belong to.. '-' or '!' possibly.)

I think we should tag, and predefine a tag set that should be adequate
for most existing plugins. User tagging is important because plugin
authors may not always be available or be willing to add this
information. [this sort of ties into the 'Get Hot New Stuff'
proposition -- it would be nice to be able to distribute the task of
correct plugin tagging across users via a web interface)

Hope I've given you something to think about :)

David
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