DeskBar Problems & Possible Improvement Areas

[bitigchi]

### Problem1:

• There is no system-component "Dock". LaunchBox and LnLauncher are mediocre at best. Fast application start should be more baked into the system, like how macOS Dock handles stuff.

### Solution:

• Allow pinning applications to the DeskBar. Pre-pin a curated list applications by default for a fresh install. Make DeskBar customisation easier and display styles should adjust itself according to the screen estate.

### Problem2:

• Access to Applications list is hard, it takes time and requires precise mouse movements.

### Solution:

• Display Applications automatically inside the Leaf menu. They should be listed after the last used apps etc. part, thus providing easy access, and using available screen estate.

### Problem3:

• Access to Preferences list is hard, it takes time and requires precise mouse movements.

### Solution:

• Make Preferences a regular Deskbar menu item, and make the opening menu on overlay one. This way user won't have to scroll down to the Preferences label and make a precise left motion while keeping the cursor on the Preferences label.

### Problem4:

• Opening menus are hard to navigate with a mouse. Some of the menus open to the left, some of them open to the right. Not consistent.

### Solution:

• Use overlay menus, or increase menu item hight, making it easier to keep focus. Menus also should only open to one fixed direction.

[pulkomandy]

Hi,

Problems 2/3: this is not exactly correct, in Haiku you don't need this precise mouse movements to reach a submenu. It is allowed to move over other menu items to reach the submenu. We use menus a lot, so we have been careful to make them behave this way.

Problem 4: menus open to the right unless there is no available space. "one fixed direction" would make them open outside the screen, so, that's not very helpful.

In general, DeskBar should be updated and be more modern, indeed. There have been various proposals over the years around that.

[axeld]

Replying to pulkomandy:

Problem 4: menus open to the right unless there is no available space. "one fixed direction" would make them open outside the screen, so, that's not very helpful.

I think we have a ticket somewhere that demands something similar already. It starts to make sense when the menu code would check beforehand, if all menus could open to the right, and if they don't, open all of them to the left, and vice versa (on the way back). That would definitely make navigating them a smoother experience IMO.

Apart from that, using any mouse-driven UI always requires precise mouse movement :-)

[bitigchi]

For menus, granted menus will open to the direction wherever they fit best, but for DeskBar the consistency is apparent and not very intuitive. Displaying applications by default on the lower part of the menu will help application discoverability and a native style overlay menu for Preferences and other items would help using the screen estate nicely.

[bitigchi]

Maybe this could be a nice GSOC challenge?

[pulkomandy]

Not really, unfortunately. GSoC projects should be mainly about programming, this would be largely about UI/UX design instead. It is the kind of thing we could do in Outreachy, however, we don't have funding to participate in Outreachy this year.

[X512]

Replying to pulkomandy:

Problems 2/3: this is not exactly correct, in Haiku you don't need this precise mouse movements to reach a submenu. It is allowed to move over other menu items to reach the submenu. We use menus a lot, so we have been careful to make them behave this way.

This it not work properly in master branch. Menus selection is changing when cursor is near menu edge. This is fixed in ​https://review.haiku-os.org/c/haiku/+/2071. This patch also disable menu delay, because is is not required anymore and BeOS behave the same, but delay can e reintroduced if required.

[X512]

Replying to bitigchi:

### Problem4:

• Opening menus are hard to navigate with a mouse. Some of the menus open to the left, some of them open to the right. Not consistent.

Maybe default menu opening direction flag should be introduced and set to left direction for Deskbar menu, if Deskbar is located on right side.

[axeld]

Replying to X512:

Maybe default menu opening direction flag should be introduced and set to left direction for Deskbar menu, if Deskbar is located on right side.

That would be a simpler solution than what I had in mind, and would also have no problems with dynamic contents -- I like it. But we could also just have a menu figure this out all by itself, I assume, ie. when the originating menu is on the right side of the monitor (or even its last third), one could always set this flag automatically.

[X512]

Maybe also submenu arrows should be displayed on left side if menu has left direction flag.

[pulkomandy]

-1 to removing tv, midiplayer and serialconnect.

[pulkomandy]

Also this ticket is going in many directions and it will be hard to track things as a ticket. Maybe open a separate one for each of the "problems"? I think they have separate and independant solutions, and we're not going for "let's do a full deskbar rewrite" here?

[jscipione]

This sounds like you just hate menus. Still they are a valid approach. Dock functionality is optionally provided by heyu68's dock or launchbox. I've been slowly improving Deskbar over the years little by little adding features. The latest feature I've added is a new mini-mide and one of the big reasons for it is so that Deskbar will be out of the way for a dock.

Concept is here: ​https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/deskbar-design-idea-mockup-split-out-the-application-bar/3585

Pinning apps has been a planned feature for a while now. Detailed here: ​https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/stippi/2011-04-07_deskbar_rewrite/

I suggested adding a top-level Utilities folder a while back but we already have a few special app folders "Desktop applets" and "Demos" so my suggestion was ill-received.

3rd party apps can be added, an integrated search would be nice to have. We need less brainstorming in this area and more coding.

[bitigchi]

Actually I am a big advocate of menus in general (or maybe in window context - they are the best way to present all application functions in a neatly way), I just thought they could be improved in Deskbar context as well.

I haven't seen the mock-ups before, they look great.

Thanks for the update!

[jscipione]

I personally think that we should take the Application folders and Preferences out of Deskbar and replace them with Spotlight/Quicklaunch but that may be too crazy a suggestion for now. The Apple/Start Menu paradigm has become a bit dated these days I'm afraid. If Haiku had the kind of market penetration that Windows 98 enjoyed back in the day the Deskbar Applications menu would be the same kind of mess that the Start Menu was on Windows with third party developers putting all kinds of crap in there and adding a hideous replicant icon too.

[pulkomandy]

The applications menu is already very crowded and almost unusable. Preferences is still ok, we are careful to keep this one down to a reasonable level.

[jscipione]

Regarding taking TV, SerialConnect, MidiPlayer etc. out, well that's really more about that everything is currently included in the monolithic Haiku package and we need to start ripping stuff out into its own packages. Then we can start to quibble about whether SerialConnect should be included by default or not.

[pulkomandy]

The rule is simple: if it was in BeOS R5 it should be in Haiku as well. This saves a lot of discussion on what should be removed, even if it is not pleasing everyone. Let's spend our energy on more useful/important things for now :)

[X512]

Replying to jscipione:

I personally think that we should take the Application folders and Preferences out of Deskbar and replace them with Spotlight/Quicklaunch

I disagree. I hate big icon grid launchers. Windows 95 like menus are much easier to use. The only problem in Haiku menu is that it is not well organized. It should have categories and be user-configurable.

If you want to use Quicklunch or other launchers, nobody stop you, please don't break Deskbar. Unlike Ubuntu/Gnome 3/Mac OS X Haiku is one of systems that have normal applications menu instead of fullscreen giant icons grid. It may be good for smartphones, but not for PCs. Haiku is targeted for personal computers.

[pulkomandy]

No one talked about a "giant icon grid" here. The idea is just to have a search bar where you can type a few letters and get a much reduced list of applications to search in. We already do this in Tracker and I don't see why DeskBar couldn't offer the same. It doesn't even have to be a visible search bar, current windows versions just listen for keystrokes in the start menu and enter search mode when you start typing.

[X512]

Replying to pulkomandy:

No one talked about a "giant icon grid" here. The idea is just to have a search bar where you can type a few letters and get a much reduced list of applications to search in. We already do this in Tracker and I don't see why DeskBar couldn't offer the same. It doesn't even have to be a visible search bar, current windows versions just listen for keystrokes in the start menu and enter search mode when you start typing.

Thanks for explaining. It will be nice to have this feature.