I always want to use things the way they were intended, but it has always grated on me that there are not one, but two panels with controls and everything all over them. Now I understand the logical division of the default panels. The simple menus to the top left in what I would call the Ximian configuration. The ‘system tray’ stuff in the top right. Virtual desktops and running apps along the bottom.
I remembered the usability work Novell did on a new style of menu they developed for the Novell Linux Desktop and went in search of it. I knew it was referred to as the “slab” menu because it’s basically a button that calls up a big slab with your stuff on it. To get it, just install gnome-main-menu. Right click the panel and click “Add to Panel” then find it in the list where it’s labeled “Main Menu”- you want the second item with that name (obviously the slab isn’t Ubuntu’s choice) that has the caption “Default Menu and Application Browser”. Try it. I think it’ll grow on you. I had to alter the panel height to be 28 pixels so the computer icon wouldn’t be clipped.
After installing, I’ve now consolidated everything down to the bottom panel to free up the 24 pixels at the top of the screen. Generally, this will simplify my layout and hopefully let my eyes focus on what I’m working on and not the million system icons.
I was also thrilled to find a mention of the default hotkey that the standard GNOME window manager, Metacity, uses to open the GNOME menus and that when I tried it, it opened the slab. Goodbye mouse-clicks!
CTRL+ESC
The Slab Menu has many many many defects, my dear mouse-clicker,…
In the firt place it is slower to do things with it than with the comon menus in gnome. Not only to find things but to find out things, understand, learn,…. It is closed.
It has a lot of wasted empty space and that’s why it is so BIGGG.
If you want to find what’s the real name of an application (which is usual ecause they never use the real name) in the menus, you need to drag the icon to the desktop, right-click on the new icon, go to properties, close and then move the new icon to the tray… UUHH!!
Why are the games at the top of the list if they are what I use less??…UHHH?
Why are there so many instances of the same application. That akes it dificult to find them… and why are they so stupidly classified?? UHH!!
Why are there recent applications, recent documents but no recent places??
Whay can’t I choose how many recent applications, places and documents I want to have?
Why isn’t there a button to edit it, erase the recent items, and lock it?? THAT’S THE FIRST LESSON YOU LEARN when ou learn how to build an application!
Add, modify and Delete,
Add, modify and Delete,
Add, modify and Delete;
Add, modify and Delete,……
And last, but not least, the lists of recent items and the lists of favurite items should be SCROLLABLE!!!
Bye bye!
Although I don’t have GNOME installed right now (running KDE 4.4) I seem to remember that even the default GNOME menus would often give a generic name for something- or maybe it was an Ubuntu thing. gedit is Text Editor for example.
Regardless, I think with application launchers like GNOME-Do and KRunner, I really don’t use menus anymore. I just hit a hot key and start typing to find the app I need. 🙂