The new kde-style menu responds to mouse-over, and there doesn't seem any way to stop it. To get a sub-menu you have to click on the group member, and if the item you want isn't there you have to click on the < button. This is all very slow. I think it will bring a storm of criticism. Switching to the classic menu, I find that some sub-menus display over the top of the main menu - not all sub-menus, just some of them. That's probably a bug that should be reported. These are personal reactions, but interfere with my working comfort.

On Tuesday 22 April 2008 02:30, Andrew Farris wrote: > Of course, it reminds me heavily of the (also disgusting and unusably slow) > Windows Vista new style menu system... which is no surprise as much of > KDE's design mirrors UI elements people find comfortable and familiar. (no > need to flame I admit I'm a gnome person already people) I gave KDE4 a > shot and I do like some of it, just not that menu. I don't know anything about Vista, but you may be right about similarities. I understand that there are now International(?) guidelines as to what constitutes usability. I suspect that many of us would argue with some of those guidelines.

If there were a key combination that would open the system menu without the mouse, I could do the whole thing from the keyboard. Maybe there is and I just haven't found it yet.

On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 07:59 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote: > On Tuesday 22 April 2008 22:30:44 Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > > If there were a key combination that would open the system menu without > > the mouse, I could do the whole thing from the keyboard. Maybe there is > > and I just haven't found it yet. > > Maybe you could define one in the control center? There isn't a control center in KDE 4. There's now a System Settings panel (similar to Ubuntu KDE, or MacOS).

The Keyboard component has lots of shortcut definitions, but no action corresponding to what I'm talking about.

On Monday 21 April 2008 09:30:17 pm Andrew Farris wrote: > Anne Wilson wrote: > > The new kde-style menu responds to mouse-over, and there doesn't seem any > > way to stop it. To get a sub-menu you have to click on the group member, > > and if the item you want isn't there you have to click on the < button. > > This is all very slow. I think it will bring a storm of criticism. > > > > Switching to the classic menu, I find that some sub-menus display over > > the top of the main menu - not all sub-menus, just some of them. That's > > probably a bug that should be reported. > > > > These are personal reactions, but interfere with my working comfort. > > I tried KDE4 and that is definitely my number 1 complaint with the new KDE. > The new style menu is absolutely unusable as it is (if I wanted to do > something that slow I would browse through the filesystem into /usr and > double click the executable myself). > > Of course, it reminds me heavily of the (also disgusting and unusably slow) > Windows Vista new style menu system... which is no surprise as much of > KDE's design mirrors UI elements people find comfortable and familiar. (no > need to flame I admit I'm a gnome person already people) I gave KDE4 a > shot and I do like some of it, just not that menu. > > -- > Andrew Farris <lordmorgul(a)gmail.com&gt; www.lordmorgul.net > gpg 0x8300BF29 fingerprint 071D FFE0 4CBC 13FC 7DEB 5BD5 5F89 8E1B 8300 > BF29 I agree as well, manually searching the application menu is painful. I had thought that the search was supposed to find applications that were related to the search words, not just a name match. I was looking for the display control to set up a dual monitor system. I thought I should be using randr (which isn't on any of the menus to begin with). Trying to manually search the menus is a huge pain, as noted. It is especially frustrating when the item isn't there. When I searched for "video", I found nothing related to the monitor. When I searched for 'monitor', I got 'System Monitor' and 'Battery Monitor'. When I searched for 'display' I got the 'Display,' which looks like it has randr built in. If I had been searching for a 'music player', 'mp3 player', or just a 'player' I don't think I would have found Amarok or Rhythmbox. Searches would be much more useful if they were done on a brief description of the application (something like 'apropos' or 'man -k' at the command line).