Re: [Texmacs-dev] Reorganization of the menubar

[Joris van der Hoeven]

> > I also checked several editors and browsers and you seem to be right.
> > I probably should make it something like
> > 
> >     File Edit View Insert Text Paragraph Document Go Tools Settings Help
> 
> Let us consider two browsers which are renowed for the quality of
> their GUI: Konqueror and Galeon. If we mimic their layout we can get:
> 
>   Galeon style:
> 
>     File Edit View Settings Go Insert Text Paragraph Document Tools Help
> 
>   Konqueror style:
> 
>     File Edit View Go Tools Settings Insert Text Paragraph Document Help
> 
> I tend to prefer the second layout. For one thing, I think the "View"
> and "Go" menus should not be far away from each other since they are
> semantically close.
> 
> For the "Tools" and "Settings" menu, the problem is a bit more
> complicated, even Konqueror and Galeon do not seem to agree.
> 
> I think the second layout is better. There is an argument of semantic
> closeness. "File", "View", and "Settings" all control global state of
> the application, so they belong together (and Galeon agrees on that
> point). The last problem is "Tools" which basically reads "stuff which
> did not fit anywhere else". I would prefer it at the start simply
> because it contains important commands and putting it at the far end
> may cause it to be overlooked.

Be careful to compare only with browsers, because these applications
can nor really be used in order to edit files. For text editors,
the layout

File Edit Insert ...

is much more common. Having four items before Insert seems quite
unnatural for me, not to speak about six. As to semantics,
it is also natural to relegate the menus which are used less
to the right; this is the case for Tools and Settings and
this is indeed what most applications do.
Similarly, I find it more natural to have View at the end and
Go at the start, but other applications do not seem to agree on this:
most put View after Edit and Go (which is often called Documents)
somewhere at the end. If you insist on putting View and Go
close one to another, we might also choose to put them more at the end.

As a conclusion, I definitely prefer to have Tools and Settings
at the end, because 1) they are less used 2) this is what most programs do
3) they are not *that* semantically close to File, etc.
As to View and Go, I still hesitate.