[Pan-devel] Re-organizing the menus

[Toni Willberg]

Hello world.

Based on IRC conversation on #pan I dare to suggest re-organizing some
of the (well, all of the) menus of Pan.

It seems to be intentional that there are no submenus in the Pan
currently. This causes the menu lists to be quite long, even too long
and messy in some cases, thus reducing usability and increasing
beginner's frustration level.

Menu items that are often used via mouse (for example "Post to
Newsgroup"), should naturally stay under 1st level menu. But menu items
that are rarely used with mouse may be located under a submenu whenever
possible. Advanced and heavy users will use keyboard shortcuts anyway.

The menu items are not there just to show what the keyboard shortcut
keys are, the help is for that! Afaik all possible stuff does not even
need to be in the menu. They could be hidden, and could be used only by
keyboard in some cases. This would simplify the menus even more.

My suggestion would reduce number of 1st level menus from ten to six. 

Please, feel free to comment, yell, embarrash me -
 and perhaps yourself, too. :)


I suggest the menus to be re-organized as follows:

 [ File - Edit - View - Action - Tools - Help ]

File:
 Save Article as
 Print Article
 ------------------
 New Folder
 ------------------
 Work Offline (instead of Online)
 ------------------
 Quit


Edit:
 Select All (text or articles, depending on where the focus is. This
requires some modifications to code!?)
 Select:
  > ... (all those funky select options goes under here, if they are
needed)
 ------------------
 Find
 Find Next
 ------------------
 Preferences
 Profiles
 Servers


View:
 Message Body:
  > Rot13
  > Wrap (Autowrap?)
  > Mute Quoted Text (Hide Quoted Text?)
  > Show All Headers
  > Use Monospaced Font
 ------------------
 Groups and Folders: (new submenu, requires new code?)
  > All Groups
  > Subscribed Groups
  > New Groups
  > Folders
 ------------------
 Tabbed Layout
 Tabs:
  > Jump to Group Tab
  > Jump to Header Tab
  > Jump to Body Tab
 ----------------
 Panes:
  > Show Group Pane
  > Show Header Pane
  > Show Body Pane
 -----------------
 Expand Selected Threads
 Collapse Selected Threads
 Collapse All Threads (new item, requires new code?)


Actions:
 Post to Newsgroup
 Followup to Newsgroup
 Reply by Email
 Followup and Reply
 Forward Article by Email
 Cancel Article
 Delete Article
 Mark Read
 -------------------------
 Watch Thread
 Ignore Thread
 -------------------------
 Go:
  >...(all stuff from "Go")
 -------------------------
 Refresh Article Counts
 Get:
  > Get new headers
  > Get all headers
  > Get new headers and bodies
  > Get list of all groups
  > Get list of New Groups
  > Advanced (was: More Download Options)
 -------------------------  
 Download Attachments
 Download:
  > Download Flagged Articles
  > Download Selected Attachments as 
 Download Location
 -------------------------  
 Subscribe
 Unsubscribe
 Mark Group Read
 Delete All Articles
 Chararacter Encoding:
  > ...(list off all possible encodings)
 -------------------------
 Send Pending Messages
 -------------------------
 Select server:
  > Some server
  > Other server


Tools:
 Custom Filters
 Filters:
  > ... (all stuff from "Filters")
 ------------------
 Rules
 View Article's Scores
 ------------------
 Edit Scorefile
 Log Viewer


Help:
 Pan homepage
 Online user's manual
 ------------------
 Feedback
 Report a Bug
 ------------------
 About

 


--
 Toni Willberg - http://toniw.iki.fi/