[Fwd: "Miscellaneous" category needed in the KMenu]

[Frans Englich]

On Friday 30 January 2004 23:58, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> I notice that the draft standard for the XDG menus does not have a
> Miscellaneous category.
>
> The specific question for now is where should GRAMPS (a Genealogy
> application) go?

Well. AFAICT, the answers I gave when you raised the same question on 
kde-usability holds up pretty fine - until someone proves otherwise, of 
course.
Here's some quotes:

"> In KDE 3.2 the category: "Applications" has been removed which is a good
> idea.  However, some applications do not fit in any of the categories
> listed in the standard menu.
A "Misc" category would have the same problem as "Apps" - it is generic and 
doesn't tell the user anything. If the text of the toplevel categories are to 
help the user navigate and describe what the submenu contains, "misc" as well 
as "apps" is pretty hopeless, I think.
Anyway, if the categories are to be added it should be done on the xdg-list so 
fd.o don't loose its influence."

And another one:

"> Yes if there were a top level for Science you could stretch the definition
> a little and put Genealogy under Science.
Putting gramps under Science is not a wrong categorization, Genealogy just 
happens to be more exact(but is a sub class of Science).
I would say, from a usability viewpoint it is preferred to only have Science 
as toplevel and not subcategories in Science for each specific science, such 
as Genealogy. IOW, I think it is just fine right now for gramps' case, 
although I personally doesn't make much sense out of KDE's "edutainment"."

The point of the menu spec is not to do an /exact/ categorization ala 
Aristoteles - it is there to make sure the user can navigate efficiently 
between the installed apps. Having Science/Genealogy, [...] Science/N is not 
good at a usability point - it means having tons of entries which is submenus 
and have one or two entries each(ie Science/Genealogy/gramps). 
So, putting gramps under Science is usability wise(and which this is all 
about) the /best/ thing to do, better than putting it under 
Science/genealogy, even though it is logically a more correct choice.

And for the menu spec, I think a "Miscellaneous" section would be a bad idea - 
broad top level sections is better(such as Science).

>
> The future questions is whether we should assume that some application will
> still turn up that we don't have a category for -- that it is necessary to
> have a Miscellaneous (or Other) category.

It is not useful to have an app under "Miscellaneous". It doesn't help having 
a "misc" section, the term doesn't inform the user about what it contains.

When a whole new toplevel category jumps out from the thin air we add that 
category, instead of dilluting the menu spec.

And when it comes to KDE, James, the reason it doesn't show up is probably 
because the relevant .directory files have NoDisplay=true. I will try to fix 
this. My plan was to get out of bed first.. ;-)

Cheers,

		Frans


>
> --
> JRT