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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Action icons in menus
From:       Miha =?utf-8?q?=C4=8Can=C4=8Dula?= <miha.cancula () gmail ! com>
Date:       2010-12-13 19:56:17
Message-ID: 201012132056.24708.miha.cancula () gmail ! com
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I have recently come across an idea on KDE Brainstorm. [1] The proposal is to change \
the common actions in menus (cut, copy and paste) from text lines to icons, like in \
application toolbars. It is currently the most popular idea there.

Someone posted a proof-of-concept example of how this can be achieved, and I used it \
for Dolphin's popup menu. [2] Code-wise, this change is very simle (5 lines of code \
at most). Qt can embed custom widgets to menu via the QWidgetAction class, and this \
class can contain a KToolBar. It has to be done for each application, but there's \
very little work involved. If the idea is accepted, a convenience method or two would \
be added to KMenu and/or KStandardAction, so there could be a global settings to fall \
back to current mode. 

However, it is a major change for user interaction. So I'd like to start a discussion \
whether such a change is desired for KDE applications or not. The pros and cons I can \
think of right now are: Pro:
  1. Biger clickable area => less chance of misclicks
  2. Icons, when they are intuitively identifiable with an action, can be recognised \
by humans faster and much easier.  I think the above makes it better from a usability \
standpoint, but as a programmer I wouldn't know much about that.

Con:
  3. For actions that are not easily identifiable by an icon, this is very bad. This \
is the reason only some of the actions would be converted to icon display, as you can \
see from the mockups and screenshots.   4. It looks (a little) like the ribbon UI. 

I personally believe such a change is a good thing. However, there must be limits. \
Using it in right-mouse-button menus is one thing, using it in the File menu is \
another. I would very much like to know how you feel about this. 

Thank you,
Miha Čančula

[1]: http://forum.kde.org/brainstorm.php?mode=idea&i=89969#anchormain
[2]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noughmad/sets/72157625584527238/


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