Re: [Pan-devel] Re-organizing the menus

[Charles Kerr]

On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 09:58:31PM +0300, Toni Willberg wrote:
> 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

Hi Toni,

I tried to respond point-by-point, as I like some of your ideas and
disagree with others, but the menus are so big (which is the problem in
the first place ;) that it's hard to keep a handle on the big picture
by going point-by-point.  So:

* I agree that the menus are too big, but disagree about what to do
  about it -- you're right that avoiding submenus has been a goal of
  mine. ;)

* You've dropped a few commands -- "Collapse Group Names" and
  "Thread Header Pane" -- which probably could be moved into the
  Preferences dialog, shrinking the menus slightly.

* You've droppped at least one command -- "Download" -- which could
  probably be removed completely, as it's probably rarely used, and
  because Flag + Download Flagged will do the same thing.

* You've dropped a few commands -- "Edit Article in Folder", "Delete
  Folder", "Print Article" and "Create Score", to name a few -- 
  which are only accessable through the menu and should be kept.

* You've added a few new commands -- "Collapse all articles" and
  "Character Encodings".  (Shouldn't "Character Encodings" go under
  View?) that need to be discussed separately from this reorganization.

* "Go" is recommended by the Gnome HiG for having the kinds of buttons
  that are in Pan's "Go" menu, so IMO it should stay as-is.

* Your "Action" menu is absolutely huge.  Even not counting the
  submenus it's larger than any menu currently in Pan.  IMO this
  would trade one problem for another.

* I'd like to shorten the Filter menu but don't have a solution cleaner
  than what's in the current version.

cheers,
Charles