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List:       kde
Subject:    RE: PROPOSAL: Tidying up the K applications menu
From:       "Timothy R. Butler" <kde () uninetsolutions ! com>
Date:       1999-11-16 0:43:25
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 Hear Hear! I agree with you Jens, as you know - heehee - that I think that
KDE needs some more touch ups to make it easy. Things like better
organization sound absolutely wonderful! I'd be glad to assist in anyway
possible (save C programming, since I'm a Perl programmer).

 Additional thought: You mention that the menus should wrap to hold the
extra stuff, and while this would be an improvement, Win 95/NT 4 had this
and it was quite annoying (soon the menus would span the entire screen at
low-res). MS fixed this in Win 98 by replacing wrapping with arrows at the
top and bottom of large menus that let you scroll up and down.

 Anyway even if nothing new was added to kpanel (or the new kpanel
replacement in 2.0), I think more descriptive names would be good. Many
program's actual names are more descriptive than their icons - so even if
the name was the actual program's name...

  Warmest Regards,
                Tim

-------------------------------------------
Timothy R. Butler
Internet Solutions Consultant
Universal Networks
Christian Web Services Since 1996.
webadmin@uninetsolutions.com
An Authorized Ipswitch Reseller.
-------------------------------------------
Visit us on the web at:
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-------------------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kde-request@lists.netcentral.net
> [mailto:kde-request@lists.netcentral.net]On Behalf Of Jens Benecke
> Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 5:58 PM
> To: KDE general mailing list
> Subject: PROPOSAL: Tidying up the K applications menu
>
>
> 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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