__/ [ Handover Phist ] on Thursday 21 September 2006 15:39 \__
> Roy Schestowitz :
>> Alacarte: GNOME's long overdue menu editor
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| The Alacarte menu editor is one of the major additions in GNOME 2.16.
>>| Already previously available in Ubuntu and other distributions, Alacartea
>>| dds a degree of customization that has been generally lacking since
>>| GNOME dropped its previous menu editor more than five years ago during
>>| the early 2.x releases.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/12/1933236
>>
>> http://www.realistanew.com/projects/alacarte/
>>
>> I still find it amusing that Windows offers the choice between vanilla and
>> vanilla. Only "Programs" can be changed and, by default, the menus are a
>> sordid mess of company names, as well as groups with useless text files
>> and licenses that makes scrolling a pain. The editor, much like that
>> offered by Internet Explorer for bookmarks ("favorites") seems like the
>> least usable thing in the history of computing. Microsoft could use some
>> competition or inspiration.
>
> What has always had me baffled in XP is the more popular a program is,
> the further away from the start button it moves. How dumb is that?! I
> keep shouting "git back here I gotta click you again!" every time I have
> to re-run windows update on a new installation.
True. Meanwhile, on the contrary, Novell is renovated the KDE and GNOME menus
as to improve usability. They compromise consistency (w.r.t. past version)
in favour of long-term gains.
As regards invocation: In Windows, I have always stuck to a quick(er) method,
which is to set a CTRL+ALT+<X> shortcut to each program that I regularly
use. Without any third-party software (and potentially *gasp* malware), this
was only possible so long as you had icons (=clutter) on the desktop. In
SUSE, on the other hand, I have been using xbindkeys (desktop-environment
independent) to achieve the same thing with a vacant workspace. Not only
that will be possible; merely any operation can be assigned /any/ shortcut
that you like, as well as an action (e.g. indentation of this post will be a
quick CTRL+ALT+7), a mouse gesture etc. This can also be handled in the KDE
and GNOME menus if necessary (environment specific, so you can't grab your
favourite shortcuts over SSH+X11). Other desktop environments are no
exception. They offer choice; they give you power shall you require it.
When I come to think about it, I wrote some notes about it last year. A MySQL
search immediately brings up
http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2005/08/13/program-invocation-methods/
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Yes, I know, but does it run Linux?"
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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