Re: Shared application menu

[Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf]

On 08.10.2003 13:40:40 Banlu Kemiyatorn wrote:
>My idea is using horizontal top screen for placing NSToolBar and
>NSStatusBar.
>(NSToolBar on left and NSStatusBar on right seperated with a kind of
>seperator)
>The top area should be used for something. NSToolBar and NSStatusBar 
suite
>that place best because 1) they won't hurt the current look and feel too
>much. 2) most
>of them are icons so they won't suffer from text menu's width. 3) I hate
>where
>NSToolBar is located in OSX now. 

As for NSToolBar:

This is a per window thing, that means an application may sport different 
kind of windows of which each kind can have it's personal toolbar. (An 
example that comes to my mind is Camino which has different toolbars for 
it's browser and download windows).

A toolbar on the top of the screen implies global validity of the toolbar 
items. Since it is done different from that in Mac OS X it would create 
another hurdle for porting applications. 

Btw. you might think it is done like you propose in MS Windows for 
instance. That is only half way true: Even MS Word and MS Excel differ in 
the way they handle this. MS Word has a toolbar at the top of each window 
like in Mac OS X but MS Excel has a master window with a toolbar that 
contains the document windows. Such an inconsistency is worse than any 
other consistent way to do this. MS Windows should not be a role model for 
user interfaces (like for KDE or GNOME).

>4) the edge of screen should be used to
>increase productivity in a way. 

This works only if the buttons etc. really reach to the edge of the screen 
and are not - like it is done in the MS Windows taskbar - one or two 
pixels away from it. I think MS did this because it looks better this way 
- and it really does. Having some buttons sitting at the very top of the 
screen would look really clumpsy IMHO. And as you can tell from many 
requests and a lot of different projects on the web not only the feel but 
also the look is important to most users.

greetings, Lars