Xfce Forum

Mechron

Member

Registered: 2013-05-18

Posts: 2

User Interface

Hello,

This is directed primarily at the developers.

First, thank you for creating this desktop environment I do use it a lot.

I have a suggestion and I'm not sure that this is even something that can be addressed by the window manager, but I'll start here.

With the design of most computer monitors being widwer than they are tall, and most programs run in a column like format, web content mostly scrolls down, documents and pdf files are formatted in columns, it seems to be less efficient to have all your menus on the top. Is it possible to move the menues to the side of the window? This would give you more real estate vertically. Have the first four letters of the menu title show, then when you click on it, it would pop out, just like it does now.

I am curious what people think of this idea.

Thanks,
Ron

Sideburns

Member

From: Trinidad, CO

Registered: 2011-03-30

Posts: 467

Website

Re: User Interface

Why don't you just go to the Settings Menu, open up Panel and change yours from Horizontal to Vertical?

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Any advice in this post is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Mechron

Member

Registered: 2013-05-18

Posts: 2

Re: User Interface

Thanks for the tip. I was more refering to the actual windows. Where you find file, edit, view etcetera. As well as the Minimize, maximize, window functions. I think it would be very usefull to have these on the side rather than the top.

ozjd

Member

From: Hawkesbury NSW Australia

Registered: 2012-02-05

Posts: 560

Website

Re: User Interface

Interesting idea. I already have a panel at the side as Sideburns suggests, to maximise vertical room for applications. I like your idea of extending that to application's menu bar even the titlebar. Not sure it is within the power of the window manager to do it but it would be an interesting option.

BruceMcL

Member

Registered: 2013-03-11

Posts: 13

Re: User Interface

I think the goal of maximizing vertical space is a good one. There is an app called maximus that attempts to combine the window title bar and menu bar. It was made for Ubuntu in the pre-Unity days, and may not work on XFCE.

Moving the menus to the side is a radical idea! I think you would lose too much readability. Perhaps if the whole name showed when you roll over the menu, or if the names of all of the menus showed when you roll over any menu title. As you suggested, I don't think this is something the window manager does, I think it is handled by GTK, in the "Appearance" panel. To achieve this it may be necessary to fork GTK and recompile apps, which would be a major inconvenience.

Edit: maximus does work. There are a couple of options worth noting: --no-restart and --no-maximize
Both are helpful if you just want to try it out. The <Alt>F10 shortcut (found in Window Manger: Keyboard) is how you get a window back to regular size after maximizing.

Last edited by BruceMcL (2013-05-20 01:10:35)

the_file

Member

Registered: 2013-02-17

Posts: 36

Re: User Interface

Hello,

This is directed primarily at the developers.

First, thank you for creating this desktop environment I do use it a lot.

I have a suggestion and I'm not sure that this is even something that can be addressed by the window manager, but I'll start here.

With the design of most computer monitors being widwer than they are tall, and most programs run in a column like format, web content mostly scrolls down, documents and pdf files are formatted in columns, it seems to be less efficient to have all your menus on the top. Is it possible to move the menues to the side of the window? This would give you more real estate vertically. Have the first four letters of the menu title show, then when you click on it, it would pop out, just like it does now.

I am curious what people think of this idea.

Thanks,
Ron

Just how much space would putting the menus on the side over the top really give you. Is it really worth the development time and effort for that small space, when infact you can run your monitor on portrait mode.

paolo321

Member

Registered: 2011-06-26

Posts: 121

Re: User Interface

While I think that on some devices (eg. my netbook) vertical space is precious, I also like having a "traditional setup" , identical or anyway similar on my different devices...
Then I reduce vertical used space with "per-application" setups. Your idea may be really "unconventional", just maybe "too unconventional" for me :-)