[Wishlist] Improving the user-interface for removing categories in applications menu

[Joseph Garvin]

Binary package hint: alacarte

Updated description:

In order to delete categories you have to select "Applications" in the top left, then the categories appear _again_ in the middle column, and then you can click them there and click delete. The 'delete' button doesn't have any context around it to make this behaviour intuitive though, I expect to be able to click categories in the left column and just hit the delete key, or right click them and get a context menu with a delete option.

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Original description follows:

The gnome-panel applications menu doesn't let you delete categories. Pick a category. Click delete. Nothing happens. I cleaned out my ~/.wine directory, and wanted to remove the wine category as a result. I can remove as many subitems as I want, but not the category itself. Over time, if enough apps add categories, this makes the edit menus interface rather cluttered.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Hello Joseph!

I've read your bug report, but I've a doubt. Which application are you using in order to edit the application menu?

Thanks in advance.

[Joseph Garvin (k04jg02)]

The one that is triggered if you right click the applications menu and click 'edit menus.' I'm not sure if it has a name.

[Joseph Garvin (k04jg02)]

Doh! Guess this is a usability bug: You can delete categories, but you have to select "Applications" in the top left, then the categories appear _again_ in the middle column, and then you can click them there and click delete. The 'delete' button doesn't have any context around it to make this behavior intuitive though, I expect to be able to click categories in the left column and just hit the delete key, or right click them and get a context menu with a delete option.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Hi!

Thank you for your quick response.

The program triggered when you right click the application menu and select 'edit menus' is "alacarte".

I've tried to reproduce your bug and I've noticed that the user interface of alcarte is quite strange. Try for example the following steps:

1) Click "Application"
2) Click "New menu"
3) Create a new menu with name "testMenu"
4) Click "testMenu"
5) Click "New Item"
6) Create a new item with name "testItem" and command "testCommand"

Now I'm going to delete "testItem".

7) I select "testItem" from the "Items:" column
8) I click "Delete"

The result is that "testItem" has been deleted as expected.

Now I'm going to delete "testMenu".

9) I select "testMenu" from the "Menus:" column
10) I click "Delete" (which is active)

Nothing happens.

11) I select "Application" from the "Menus:" column
12) I select "testMenu" from the "Items:" column
13) I click "Delete"

"testMenu" has been deleted as expected.

(I'm sorry for the verbosity of my message...)

I'm going to move this report to "alacarte" package and mark this as "Confirmed" since I find this user interface extremely unintuitive. I'd suggest to disable the "Delete" button when the user has not selected anything in the "Item:" column, or better let the user delete an item which belongs to the "Menus:" column.

Thank you for taking the time to help in making ubuntu better.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Oops. I haven't read your second response before posting my previous (long) comment. I hope my message hasn't bored you too much! :P

Bye!

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking time to report this.

This is not a real bug, since it's the way it should be, so I am marking this as a wishlist report. Alacarte is not very intuitive but I doubt there will be much effort on this (alacarte was always horrible to use).

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Thank you for your bug report. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments here: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570180

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for sending this upstream, Michele.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Martin Mai wrote:
> Thank you for sending this upstream, Michele.
>

It was my pleasure! :)