[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Windows start menu items

[Lionel Elie Mamane]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 07:55:21AM +0000, Sveinn í Felli wrote:
> Þann mið 30.nóv 2011 06:48, skrifaði Lionel Elie Mamane:
>> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 08:07:16PM +0100, Andras Timar wrote:

>>> A user reported the following issue:
>>> https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43259

>>> "The entries in LibreOffice's Start Menu folder all begin with the word
>>> 'LibreOffice', e.g. 'LibreOffice Base', 'LibreOffice Calc'.  Surely this word
>>> is superfluous, since they are entries in a folder named 'LibreOffice ...'?
>>> This is not just a cosmetic issue: it means that the user cannot start Impress,
>>> for example, simply by pressing the 'I' key in this menu folder - instead you
>>> need multiple presses of the 'L' or down-arrow keys, followed by return. "

> Is this search behaviour default in Windows XP ?

Windows XP does not have a "search" per se; it is a menu that, like
all menus allows to type the first letters of an entry to reach it.

>> It is *very* convenient for me that the product name is included
>> there, as I have multiple versions installed: OO.org 3.2,
>> LibreOffice 3.4 and a daily snapshot. The entries from the daily
>> snapshot are labelled e.g. "LibO-dev Base". If both the released
>> version and the daily snapshot were named just "Base", I would have
>> a very hard time to choose which one to launch.

> But is there a tooltip with the full name when hovering over the
> item ?

The tooltip contains a short description of the features, but no
product name (it does not say "LibreOffice"). It says something like
"Base: create, manage and connect to databases, data entry, reports".

Even if it would contain the product name and/or version, that's
"mystery meat navigation" (google it if you haven't heard of it), a UI
design failure if there ever was one.

>> So, as a compromise to Windows XP users, maybe the released version
>> would have just "Base", but the daily snapshots keep the "LibO"
>> prefix? Windows Vista/7 users loose the ability to type "libr" and see
>> all LibreOffice choices, but they can navigate the hierarchy for that.

> Still there's a problem if you have installed both LibreOffice 3.2
> and 3.4...

1) We already have the problem of different versions of the same
   product (e.g. LibreOffice 3.3 and 3.4), so at least we are not
   making it worse.

2) Are different "release" versions of LibreOffice even
   parallel-installable "out of the box"? I think not. So the point is
   moot.

-- 
Lionel