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List:       kde-look
Subject:    RE: Usability and open source
From:       "Ben Last" <ben () last ! uk ! com>
Date:       2000-01-31 12:48:32
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> From: Tomas Furmonavicius [mailto:f1926@kaunas.aiva.lt]
> Subject: Re: Usability and open source
> Well, it's a common mistake to think that "start" menu is invention of
> MS.
A point well put - I'd just assumed that KDE had copied it from Windows.  Mea
culpa.

> And there's nothing wrong with this idea, if these menus
> are kept relatively small and well organized.
And there's the rub.  My Start menu in Win98 here (hey, I'm at work, okay?) has
14 items in the first menu and 58 in the Program section, of which at least 10
have more than four subitems.  This menu, as a public resource, is very
difficult to control (especially to the naive user).
In fact, I found it easier in Win95, when the start menu didn't restrict itself
to one vertical column and wrapped - at least then I could remember the
position of items in 2d.

> Circular menus are hard to implement. How do you imagine menu item
> text in such menus? Text is one dimensional object which is hard to fit
> properly in polar structure of circular menus.
I disagree; text isn't one dimensional.

KWord word processor program

vs

KWord word
processor
program

The latter is nearly square (in my font).  Also, just because something's hard
to implement doesn't mean it's not better.  A GUI is better than a command line
for some jobs, but it's arguably harder to implement.

regards,
ben

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