[squeak-dev] The Trunk: Morphic-mt.1624.mcz

Thiede, Christoph Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de
Tue Feb 18 07:46:32 UTC 2020


> Consider the menu you posted. It is pretty much a classic example of what we have wrong with menus in my not at all humble opinion.
>
>  - far too long
>  - pointless icons
>  - mix of submenus done via a tree menu mechanism (ie the 'embed into' submenu) and the ... mechanism (ie the 'adhere to edge...') menu and even one case of a mix!
>  - far wider than it really needs to be, seemingly driven by the menu title (another thing I dislike as a concept, largely there to make a menu behave like a persistent panel rather than actually implementing the right thing)
>  - a rather random splodge of stuff with little rhyme or reason to it
>
> And that lot doesn't even begin to delve into the horrors of the implementation code as of the last time I dug int it. I hope it may have improved a little since.


FYI: We @ HPI are currently investigating this issue and I hope we will be able to clean up this a bit after the release.


Concerning icons in general:

At least at the moment, I find them quite useful to find the right item quickly (in a list of 15 items, "this one with the magnifier" is easier to find that "number 5"). Anyway, most time I use type-to-search.

Few icons, such as "tally it", also help me to get an initial understanding of what an item might do. Clock is more intuitive to me than the word "tally" (though I'm not a native speaker).

Hey, how about a preference for showing/hiding icons? :-)


If Squeak needs new icons (maybe not for small context menus, but for larger menus, consider also the tool icons), IMO they should be definitively minimalistic (which also includes two-tone colors). And maybe we could also make a hook for exchanging the icon set like UI themes.


Best,

Christoph

________________________________
Von: Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> im Auftrag von Jakob Reschke <forums.jakob at resfarm.de>
Gesendet: Dienstag, 18. Februar 2020 07:44:14
An: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] The Trunk: Morphic-mt.1624.mcz

Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de<mailto:Das.Linux at gmx.de>> schrieb am Mo., 17. Feb. 2020, 21:55:

TL;DR: a few memorable icons help navigating.


+1

But it might also work well without icons if the menus were not as long and dense.

Preference?
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