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>The categorized, hierarchical menus that have been around forever are really unhelpful. Call me old-fashioned but I liked this way better. Search-based inter

by pak 16y ago

>The categorized, hierarchical menus that have been around forever are really unhelpful. Call me old-fashioned but I liked this way better. Search-based interfaces don't help when you know what you want to do but don't know what applications are available to do it. On Ubuntu for people coming from other OS's, this is probably a very common experience (e.g., "I want to listen to music, what media programs are on this OS?"). I like being able to get on an Ubuntu box and riffle through the hierarchical application menu to see what's installed and what I might need to add for my own use. The fact that the hierarchy is well-integrated with the package manager makes it all the more worthwhile. By moving away from this format in e.g. Mac OS X, I have a hard time keeping track of what applications I have installed without riffling through my entire Applications folder from time to time. Unless you put your Applications folder as a stack on your dock (which is not the default), I have no idea how typical users on Mac OS X remember and launch apps that aren't pinned to their docks.

zck 16y ago
I agree; I'd rather look for a task than have to search for an application by name. Of course, there's no reason it couldn't be hierarchical and have a search box.
devonrt 16y ago
I didn't necessarily suggest that the menu not be organized at all, just that the strict categorical hierarchical menus are lame. Why do some text editors go under the Utilities menu and others under the Programming menu (like Emacs). It's hard for a new user to know which menu a program is going to be under immediately after installing it, so they have to scrub all of them until they find it. Why not have a more semantic approach? Why can't I tag my applications and have the application menu be more like a tag cloud and let applications be under multiple menus. At least then I could put Emacs under Editors and Programming.
- drinian 16y ago
  It's a nice-to-have, for when you don't know exactly what you're looking for; I just wish that there were a way to make more people aware of things like Gnome Do as a complementary solution. http://do.davebsd.com/ http://do.davebsd.com/

by pak 16y ago

zck 16y ago

I agree; I'd rather look for a task than have to search for an application by name. Of course, there's no reason it couldn't be hierarchical and have a search box.

devonrt 16y ago

I didn't necessarily suggest that the menu not be organized at all, just that the strict categorical hierarchical menus are lame. Why do some text editors go under the Utilities menu and others under the Programming menu (like Emacs). It's hard for a new user to know which menu a program is going to be under immediately after installing it, so they have to scrub all of them until they find it. Why not have a more semantic approach? Why can't I tag my applications and have the application menu be more like a tag cloud and let applications be under multiple menus. At least then I could put Emacs under Editors and Programming.

drinian 16y ago
It's a nice-to-have, for when you don't know exactly what you're looking for; I just wish that there were a way to make more people aware of things like Gnome Do as a complementary solution. http://do.davebsd.com/ http://do.davebsd.com/