Non-GNOME HIG compliant Edit menu (preferences dialog)

[Acruiz]

The inkscape preference dialog entry should be inside
the 'Edit' menu instead of 'File'. Sometimes is
confusing selecting between document preferences and
inkscape preferences. Also, the whole app preference
entry is on edit on most gnome apps.

[Wolfram Quester (wolfi)]

# Automatically generated email from bts, devscripts version 2.8.5
forwarded 286588 https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1090323&group_id=93438&atid=604309

[Acruiz (acruiz)]

The inkscape preference dialog entry should be inside
the 'Edit' menu instead of 'File'. Sometimes is
confusing selecting between document preferences and
inkscape preferences. Also, the whole app preference
entry is on edit on most gnome apps.

[Smeyer82 (smeyer82)]

As a start to contributing to the inkscape project I created
a patch for this tracker. I don't know if it's the right
place to post it, but I do it anyway :D

The following diff should solve this bug as it moves the
inkscape preferences menu item to the edit menu.

Index: src/menus-skeleton.h
===================================================================
--- src/menus-skeleton.h (revision 12973)
+++ src/menus-skeleton.h (working copy)
@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@
 " <separator/>\n"
 " <verb verb-id=\"DialogDocumentProperties\" />\n"
 " <verb verb-id=\"DialogMetadata\" />\n"
-" <verb verb-id=\"DialogPreferences\" />\n"
 " <verb verb-id=\"DialogInput\" />\n"
 " <separator/>\n"
 " <verb verb-id=\"FileClose\" />\n"
@@ -90,6 +89,8 @@
 " <verb verb-id=\"EditDeselect\" />\n"
 " <separator/>\n"
 " <verb verb-id=\"DialogXMLEditor\" />\n"
+" <separator/>\n"
+" <verb verb-id=\"DialogPreferences\" />\n"
 " </submenu>\n"
 " <submenu name=\"" N_("_View") "\">\n"
 " <submenu name=\"" N_("_Zoom") "\">\n"

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Originator: NO

Bulia, can you comment on this proposed change?

[Horkana-users (horkana-users)]

Originator: NO

I asked for this early on.
I haven't changed my opinion that it is a good idea but it is not without
downsides and would need to be the first of other changes. Sure some
applications put Preferences in weird and unusual places, but putting it in
the Edit menu means following the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines.

Part of the problem is how cluttered the menus are, I mean 4 different
types of paste? That's just not right.

Another part is that Inkscape doesn't have things nicely organised as
users might have come to expect from other programs and has things oddly
mixed together where other programs would have Properties, Page Setup and
Preferences, Inkscape has:
Inkscape Preferences (branding overkill if ever I saw it, should just say
Preferences)
Document Properties (an odd mix of Page Setup, Properties, Prefernces, and
a few items which would be frequently used enough to go in the View menu)
and
Document Metadata (which is what a lot programs would simply call
Properties)

(while I'm looking at the cluttered menus I'm wondering why "Input
Devices" gets
a menu item all of its own instead of being in the preferences dialog,
same as GIMP loathe as I am to use it as an example of doing something
right)

As a further aside, if you used Netscape or Mozilla you might have noticed
the nice side effect of having "_Edit, Pr_eferences" and the careful use of
mnemonics which effectively gives you Alt+E and then E again to give you
quick access to the Preferences without needing to waste a more valuable
keybinding on it.

[Peter Lewerin (vermeil-deactivatedaccount)]

A more-or-less duplicate bug (170510) makes the following menu rearrangement suggestions:

 File -> Inkscape Preferences... should be Edit ->Preferences
 File -> Document Preferences... could be Document ->Settings
 Edit -> XML Editor could be Document -> XML Editor

(and two more which are already implemented)

Since we have no Document menu and the XML Editor is probably well-placed in Edit, the duplicate suggestion remains.

[Krzysztof Kosinski (tweenk)]

This should actually be handled like in Firefox: The Preferences menu is in the Edit menu only on Linux but in the Tools menu on Windows, as those are the acceped ways of doing that on those platforms.

Since the menus are verb based it's a question of conditionally altering menus-skeleton.h based on the OS at build time.

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

forwarded 286588 https://bugs.launchpad.net/debian/+source/inkscape/+bug/169759
thanks

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

Fix committed to trunk as revision 11354.