418246 - Debug & QA UI menus are to the right of the Help menu

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008021801 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008021801 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre

It is the custom across all applications that the Help menu be rightmost (last) on the menubar, the way File and Edit come first in that order. This is not the case anymore when Debug & QA UI is installed, because it puts its menus "after" the Help menu.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Load Suiterunner (Sm nightly) with DebugQA installed.

Actual Results:  
"Debug" and "QA" menus are "after" (right of, in LTR languages) the Help menu.

Expected Results:  
Help menu should be last.

Comment 1

[Hermann Schwab]

I don't agree. I'm using dífferent versions of Seamonkey, and I prefer buttons to be in the same place. Maybe the additional menues could be separated by a large spacer?

Comment 2

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I don't agree. I'm using dífferent versions of Seamonkey, and I prefer buttons
> to be in the same place. Maybe the additional menues could be separated by a
> large spacer?

Well, there used to be a fashion to have the Help menu at the far right of the menubar, and that would be "always in the same place" but I think that it's overdoing it and that moving all menus together was "the right move". However, the Help menu (and its menuitems, "Help Contents", "Check for Updates", "About SeaMonkey", etc.) is quite useful and IMHO deserves high visibility. It is more "visible" to me (and therefore more useful) when it is the last menu rather than being buried somewhere in the middle.

As for being "always in the same place", you cannot forbid extensions (not only yours but everyone's) from adding their own menus in the middle of the menubar: e.g. the Tabs Menu extension adds its "Tabs" menu (which includes one line for each currently open tab) between "Tools" and "Windows". What I propose is to place the "Debug" and "QA" menus between "Window" and "Help", which would make the Help menu IMHO highly findable, in fact more so than if it were always at the same pixel abscissa (or do you mean the same abscissa in millimetres? in percent of the screen width? in percent of the window width?)

Comment 3

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Adding a couple CC to the people who seem to be in charge of Debug & QA.

Comment 4

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Yes, this violates the HIG's (at least Apple's). We don't include the extension in releases, though (only test releases). One funny thing is that debugQAEditorOverlay.xul inserts the debug menu before the Help menu (open the Composer test page)

Comment 5

[[e-mail]]

That's because that's where the menus always used to be historically. That's not to say that they shouldn't be moved, of course.

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Attachment: (Av1) <debugQAMenuOverlay.xul> [Checkin: Comment 7]

[Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2pre) Gecko/20081017 SeaMonkey/2.0a2pre] (nightly) (W2Ksp4)

Comment 7

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Comment on attachment 345240 [details] [diff] [review]
(Av1) <debugQAMenuOverlay.xul>
[Checkin: Comment 7]

http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/1efd609e5368

Comment 8

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2pre) Gecko/20081029 SeaMonkey/2.0a2pre - Build ID: 20081029180000

Verified for Linux on this tinderbox-build: the last three menus are now Debug, QA and Help in that order.