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List:       kde
Subject:    PROPOSAL: Tidying up the K applications menu
From:       Jens Benecke <jens () pinguin ! conetix ! de>
Date:       1999-11-15 23:57:31
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Hi,

yesterday I came up with an idea. I'd like you to think about it and tell
me if it's a nice idea, and if anyone would help me realize it. It requires
a bit of work, and most importantly it requires the cooperation of most of
the KDE application developers, although "cooperation" is limited to
writing a single email and changing one or two lines in their Makefiles for
most of the time.

It does NOT (necessarily) mean more work for any of you, I could
(theoretically) do it all alone. But I don't want to start something that
would be rejected.

				--------

Background:

I think I have installed over hundred KDE workstations so far everywhere,
from schools, libraries, internet cafes, a lot of private PCs, and so on.
Most of the time this involved introducing complete newbies to the PC and
(naturally) the K desktop. Often, the institution was able to install
additional hardware and machines, because they saved so much money not
buying Windows.

Every now and then I was a little bit annoyed about the K applications
menu.  There has been a certain effort to categorize the applications in
submenus, but if you install a lot of KDE applications you quickly come to
a point where even with a resolution of 1280x1024 the "utilities" menu (for
example) scrolls beyond the end of the screen. (That seems to be a bug in
kpanel, by the way.. it should wrap ther. But that's another issue.)


Idea:

What I want do point out that if you install the tar.gz or the "q'n'd" RPM
packages, there are a lot of entries composed of just the application name,
which often says NOTHING - absolutely NOTHING - about the FUNCTION of the
application. Look at entries like (no offence intended)

	klyx
	kdf
	kwikdisk
	ktail
	klpq
	karm
	...

Those are just the UNIX commands the experienced(!) UNIX guru knows and
likes. I can understand that. But KDE is targeted to newbies also. And many
people treat computers as things that "need to work". And if they can't
find their "write-a-letter" program they give up. Period.

How much better would the menus look if we only changed the entries to
correspond to the FUNCTION of the applications, like

	Text processor (klyx)
	Show Free disk space
	Free disk space (panel)
	Follow log files (tail)
	Show Printer Queue
	Personal Time Tracker
	...

If needs be, (like above) we can include the app command name in brackets
behind the description.  I don't think those descriptions need to be more
than 30-35 characters and so fit perfectly without making the menus to
broad.

Also, I am perfectly aware of the  "pop-up" items that show a longer
description. But those are not enough... you don't want to stop your mouse
at every menu entry and wait a second until you know what's there. We can
use those (a shorter version perhaps) to include in the menu, and make the
pop-up description more detailed, perhaps. 


Call for Votes:

What I want to start (for KDE 2.0) is a "Menu Team" (consisting of me only
if no-one else wants to help me) that takes suggestions from the
application developers regarding the _FUNCTION_ of their application, and
composes a .kdelnk file that is standardized, and fits the menu structure.
I have a feeling many developers of KDE applications don't much care where
their apps go - they just throw it into "Utilities" and that's it. I don't
think that is a good solution.

I would be willing to provide the infrastructure for such a project (Web
site with SQL database for storing the data, CGI scripts so that people can
post proposals and translations for applications, web discussion boards or
newsgroups, etc). If there is interest in such an initiative, I will
probably post this into kde-devel or ask someone to propose it there (as I
don't subscribe there myself - yet..).



So: What do you think?

I think it's absolutely worth it. We need a clean menu structure for KDE
2.0. 


-- 
_ciao, Jens_______________________________ http://www.pinguin.conetix.de
·
"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. _I_ only
coded it."						-- Linus Torvalds
		Visit *comp.os.linux.games.lanparty*

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