[Lazarus] Refactor Menu

[Howard Page-Clark]

On 05/3/11 11:19, Juha Manninen wrote:

> I have refactored Lazarus main menu
...
> More ideas?

A further consideration is how to make locating seldom-used 
functionality accessible easily via the present menu system, without 
resorting to space-wasting GUI elements such as a Ribbon.

Edit, Search and Run all have 20 or more items, of which several have 
subitems.

I often find myself searching for functionality I know is there 
somewhere ... and miss it several times in the long lists.

Is there scope for arranging some items alphabetically, or at least 
having a fundamental rethink about the order and design of the menus and 
their subitem lists as they have grown to the present state, so that a 
menu design can be refined and agreed that will hold for a considerable 
period up to and beyond a 1.0 release, and be a well-thought-through 
standard that does not keep changing (familiarity with a stable and 
logically arranged menu structure saves a lot of frustration), even as 
new functionality is added.

For instance the Search menu has four separator lines (supposedly 
grouping related functionality together?) Yet 'Goto line' is at the top 
of the second section, and 'Goto include directive' is in the middle of 
the fourth section. And if you add the jumptoimplementation package its 
menu item gets tagged on at the end; and none of the four separated 
sections has items that are ordered alphabetically (at least in the 
English IDE).

I'm not wanting to complain, rather to raise the question if now is not 
a good time to take stock of the erratic menu growth and changes over 
the past few years, and as Juha suggests, refactor it constructively.

Howard