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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    "Hide Menubar" proposal
From:       Florian Graessle <flograessle () uni ! de>
Date:       2005-02-18 14:46:32
Message-ID: 20050218154632.6eaee254 () hoschi
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There have been previous discussions about the "hide menu bar" setting
in KDE on this list and on #kde-usability. In Konqueror the option can
be found under Setings -> "Hide Menubar". If it's triggered (or the
corresponding keyboard shortcut ctrl+m is pressed), the menubar gets
hidden. It can then only be brought back by hitting ctrl+m or by finding
the context menu entry. Various posts on forums devoted to linux show
that some people do have a problem to bring it back. The pop up telling
them how to get it back is not sufficient since people tend to ignore it
and click it away.

I think this a usability trap for both the user and the dveloper. The
former doesn't know how to get the menubar back, the latter doesn't
know where to place the "Show Menubar" setting on a prominent place so
the user gets hold of it. Note there are different implementations
around in KDE, once the "Show Menubar" setting can be found in the
context menu, some other apps show new a toolbar entry, and so on. So I
made a mockup which shows how this problem could be solved throughout
KDE (given it's somehow possible to implement it... ;-)

When the menubar gets hidden it's replaced by a button which is a few
pixels high and shows the same width as the menubar. Clicking the
button shows the menubar.

Nuff said, have a look at it:

http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~soma/konqui_menubar/shown.htm

What do you think about it?

Florian
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