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    Desktop Standards: The File Menu

    Take a look at the Main Menu, often called the "File" menu, in the app you are looking at now.
    Open any application and look, some are different, yes.
    What makes sense in that list? More importantly what doesn't.

    It's never made sense to me why it's called the file menu, probably because it's a throwback to a bygone era.

    What has revived this issue for me is Amarok. It's an awesome program and now is almost V2.0. Here it shows some extra initiative. And another reason to like the philosophy
    The "File" menu is gone. Replaced with the "Amarok" menu. You add files and media in the "Playlist Menu"
    IMO they should go one more step and put the "Settings Menu" into the "Amarok" menu i.e. Amarok > Settings.

    The opposite to this is another great program, SMplayer. They went silly and changed "File" menu to "Open". And in there is "Close" and "Exit". So you go... "Open" > "Close" or "Open" > "Exit". That's insane. And sorry, but yes I mean it devs.

    So I think you get my drift about the "File" menu.
    I strongly suggest that the KDE devs have a look at this and get some uniformity that follows Amarok's lead. (There may be others, I'm using Amarok as this example).

    Simply by using the applications name instead of "File", and all the application settings and stuff goes in there as well. e.g. "Amarok" > "Settings" or "Preferences".

    Ok, I've got it off my chest, I made a post.

    It's just something i would like to see happen. I think it makes sense.
    Wha'd'ya'reckon?

    #2
    Re: Desktop Standards: The File Menu

    Good points. This sort of discussion is only going to produce actual results if you propose them upstream, like in KDE USability, I think:

    http://usability.kde.org/

    I think you are mostly right, but a "File" menu dedicated to file operations is not bad (Open, Close, Save, Save As, maybe Open Recent, etc). But as you said, adding every misc item there is silly. You are better off with a Misc entry if needed.

    KDE has done a nice job I think in general, having a mostly standarized menu structure, but some work remains. I hope you contribute to KDE Usability if you have the energy, you seem to have very clear ideas!

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