On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Raphael Bosshard wrote: > Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 20:42:45 +0200 > From: Raphael Bosshard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Usability] The global menubar, Fitt's Law and usability > > Hello there! > > Today I read the short discussion about a global menu bar for GNOME 3.0 > which took place at the desktop-devel list, early april. > > This made my ask myself; is the global menu bar a good idea? I always > thought so, but what do you (as usability experts) think?
I don't consider myself an expert but here's my humble opinion. If you have read the previous discussions you should already know that it is not yet practical to implement a global menu bar. There really isn't any point in talking about it until someone does the necessary work to make it possible. The various discussions have suggested that a global menubar could be problematic for users who prefer sloppy focus. Other disadvantages and trade-offs have definately been mentioned, but I dont think anyone has said it it was an inherently bad idea. If you think there are other fundamental flaws in the idea feel free to mention them. I think we've talked about it as much as we possibly can and all that is left is for someone to make a prototype implementation. Even if it did work already I wouldn't be rushing to change Gnome to use a global menubar by default. Sincerely Alan Horkan Inkscape http://inkscape.org Abiword http://www.abisource.com Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/ Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
