Menu Editor

[Raphael Groner]

> Date: Sun, 06 May 2012 15:12:05 +0200
> From: Harald Judt <h.judt at gmx.at>
> To: Xfce development list <xfce4-dev at xfce.org>
> Subject: Re: Menu Editor
> Message-ID: <4FA678A5.6000302 at gmx.at>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> 

Hi Harald,

> As for the features...
> 

thanks for your feedback about missed features for a menu editor.
Please find my comments below. 
Alacarte is a good starting point in my opinion, what the design of a
menu editor belongs to. Unfortunately, Alacarte has a strong dependency
to the Gnome project and some of their libraries. So this is more like
a design or technical decidion to take here, not for even more features
what can be discussed after the port or fork has been done. Therefore,
I have to ask you for patience. What about starting your own project? :)

> Or perhaps "how it should look like"? I have only seen screenshots of 
> Alacarte, but those make it seem a bit uncomfortable to use. Maybe
> it's better to create something from scratch. So here are some ideas
> to support an efficient workflow:
> 
> * Menus/Submenus and applications in one tree?-view (WYSIWYG) where
> the menus can be collapsed/expanded. I find the Alacarte approach
>    with the menu/item separation inflexible and confusing.
> 

Good idea. So why then not implement an Edit mode to the existing menu
structure of Garcon? You know that the menu is visualized and organized
in a tree structure when you're using the applicationsmenu panel plugin
or the desktop context menu. I can imagine that it should be possible
to edit directly there.

> * Additionally, use an own area to the right or below the tree-view
>    that shows the properties of the menu/application (name, command,
>    path,...). One should not have to double-click the item in the
>    tree-view and have to deal with an extra dialog to modify or see
>    something. This would mean lots of tedious extra clicks.

> * Add a new item via the context menu or the main menu at the place of
>    the current selection.

That's a conflict in my opinion. You request to not have to open an
extra dialog to change some additional settings of one menu entry. But
you would like to see a context menu to create a new item. More
simpler: We add a "New" button somewhere in the already existing window,
done.

> * Drag & Drop of single and multiple items. Alacarte seems to have
> only cumbersome "move up"/"move down" buttons? Connect move up/down to
>    shortcuts.
> 

Shortcuts souldnt't be a problem at all and can be easily added by a
patch, afterwards. I know that you can add shortcuts (at least in Qt) to
every Action (Qt class: QAction) item.

> * Copy & paste existing entries.
> 

Also a feature request, very nice to have.

> * Search for and filter applications. Maybe one could use
>    xfce4-appfinder to add new entries via drag & drop?
> 

That's also an enhancement to what Alacarte is able to do, already.

- Raphael