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Gephi forums •Main menu: a new structure? - Page 2
Page 2 of 2

Re: Main menu: a new structure?

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 10:24
by jacomyma
I support Sebastien on his point, and I do not find Mathieu's proposition simpler than previous propositions. But I agree that we have to address the issues of step by step change and the issue of the mac-style menu.

I think we shouldn't just wait for the users to express their needs. Gephi as a project relies on the idea that a tool can pull users to new possibilities. Answering unexpressed needs is in the ADN of Gephi (imho).

Here are now the critics I address to Mathieu's suggestion. The "File" menu is long and unstructured, thus it doesn't appear simple to me (even if it's probably only because of prototyping in text mode). What's more we have several menus that have really few items in them. This is confusing because almost empty menus are weird, but also because some items do not make sense in their menu, even if there is so few items in the menu. Here are my points:
- "full screen" does not need its own "view" menu.
- "Language" should be integrated to preferences as in any other software...
- I think it doesn't make so much sense to have "Plugins" in "Options".
- "Check for updates" doesn't make sense in "Help".
- "Check for updates" and "Plugins" are quite similar features, and I think it make sense to have them together.

Where do we want to go by changing the menu
This time I won't make my own suggestion (because we will never achieve this discussion like that).
I will only express the points that I think are important, and when we agree on such guidelines, the solution will be easy to find.

1) Because we do not want brutal changes, we won't change too many things.

2) We won't have a Gephi menu because of Macs already having it, and we will keep a "File" menu because it's an important landmark.

3) We want to make changes because several problems are observed.
- 3.1) "Open..." and "Open Project" are confusing (users are stuck when using the wrong function)
- 3.2) "Tools > plugins" and "Plugins" menu are confusing (I often make the mistake myself)
- 3.3) Having an "Edit" menu dedicated to Workspace is weird !

4) We also want to modernize Gephi menus step by step, in order to have them a little bit more like "Google Chrome" and less like "Open Office". This means keeping visible only the most necessary options, and putting in sub-menus or in specific panels all the secondary features.


Tell if you agree on that !