208344 - 'Application' menu item

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Menus, enhancement)

Description

[Karsten Düsterloh]

Firebird claims to enhance the Mozilla GUI, but instead just redoes old
(Windows) faults. We should try to improve its GUI *above* current practice!

That said, several of the main menus contain items that *logically* just don't
belong there:
File->New Window
    ->New Tab
    ->Exit
Tools->Page Info
     ->Options

("Page Info" is of minor interest here, but I'd put it into the "View" menu.)

For all the other items I propose a new *first* menu item named "Application"
*before* the "File" menu:

Application->New Window    File->Open File       View->...
           ->New Tab           ->Close
           ->----------        ->-------------
           ->Options           ->Save As
           ->----------        ->-------------
           ->Exit              ->[Print Stuff]

Comment 1

[Karsten Düsterloh]

BTW: in this configuration the "Options" in the "Application" menu should
(again) be called "Preferences"...

Comment 2

[David P James]

I'm sure that this is going to be WONTFIXed sooner or later, so I might as well.
Your Application menu, whilst it seems to be a logical idea, is not going to
happen. The File menu has too much history behind it on various platforms now
and we simply have to live with it in its imperfect form. Firebird is supposed
to be about creating an improved web browser, not redesigning the usual program
interface that everyone is accustomed to.
As for the Options/Preferences debate, I still don't understand why it was
changed as Options is no better than Preferences on average if you ask me (some
things are more of an "option" - extensions or connection info for instance -
and others more of a "preference" - fonts and colours for example). "Settings"
(as in KDE) is the best IMHO but again it's not going to be changed.

-->WONTFIX

Comment 3

[Karsten Düsterloh]

> I'm sure that this is going to be WONTFIXed sooner or later, so I might as well.

That's *exactly* the way that's offending so many "power users" of the original
Mozilla: Phoenix/Firebird wants to become a IE-GUI-clone and noone has to
interfere with that!
-> reopening until more comments are made.

> Your Application menu, whilst it seems to be a logical idea, is not going to
> happen. The File menu has too much history behind it on various platforms now
> and we simply have to live with it in its imperfect form.

Why?
Someone has to do things different to get improvements going - why not we? This
would be a perfect moment to make things right, to abandon old faults!

> Firebird is supposed to be about creating an improved web browser,
> not redesigning the usual program interface that everyone is accustomed to.

If you fear improvements, there's actually no use for Firebird anyway.

> "Settings" (as in KDE) is the best IMHO

Yeah, it's reasonable.

> but again it's not going to be changed.

And again: Why?

Comment 4

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Karsten, while I agree that this is theoretically a good idea, old behaviours
make this practically impossible. 

Except on Mac, the file menu is the first menu item on 99.999% of all
applications on this planet. Changing this would result in massive confusion of
our existing and possible future user base. And confusing users and being the
one exception in thousand if not millions of applications isn't such a good idea
from the usability point of view.

So if we don't change that, the whole application-menu becomes useless.
Therefore I support David's decision to mark this WONTFIX.

I agree with you and David that 'Settings' is even better than 'Options'. You
should file a different bug on that. Put me in CC and I will gladly confirm it
and support you on this issue.

I like the idea of having 'Page Info' in the 'View'-menu. I always thought, that
it didn't belong under 'Tools'. 'Page Info' isn't a tool and would be IMO best
situated under 'View'. Can you file another bug for that?

Comment 5

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Taking QA Contact as designated owner of Firebird-Menus. Sorry for bugspam.

Comment 6

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Why it won't be fixed is simple: this isn't how its done.  Whether the
convention that exists is right or even good UI from a theory standpoint, for a
product that has gone to pains to duplicate certain IE behaviour
(key-compatibility among others) making what amounts to a huge shift in the
expected UI is not a good idea.

I like the idea, but this isn't end-user friendly, and we're in the end-user
world as of July 15th.

Comment 7

[Brant Gurganus]

VERIFYING obvious WONTFIX bugs.  Filter on firebirdWontFix to filter these bugs.
 I skipped a few that I'm unsure about from their summary and will manually go
through them.