A clean and slick menu is needed!

[kuser123]

Hi all!
Knoppix is getting better from version to version. But there still exist some grave problems. About one of these I want to grumble here, about the menu. The menu is a big mess! It is bloated and overloaded. There are a lot of entries which a newbie never uses. I am not a beginner. I use and develop for linux for severeal years. But I try to see it from the view of a novice in linux/computers.
People who have no experience in using a computer don't know what bc, gv, kview or xine is. The same is valid for windows users. These people know what a "Media Player" or an "Image Viewer" is, but they also can't deal with bc, gv or xine.
Another issue is number of entries in the menue. One reason is that some programs are two or three times present in the menu in different submenues. It is enough when a program is just ONE time at the right place present. Another reason is the presence of entries for programs which shouldn't be in the menu. What should a novice do with bc or with dc? A novice wants a graphical calculator like kcalc. An experienced user can still use bc when he calls it within a shell and I'm shure that the experienced users will call command line tools in the command line and not with a click in the menu. Ok it is "nice" when the menu shows that a lot of progrms are installed, but that makes the menu unusable. In my opinion the most command line tools can be removed from the menu.
For a usabitlity enhancement I would also change the entries themselves. For novices it would be better to change the entries as follows:
Xpdf (xpdf) -> PDF Reader (xpdf)
xine media player (xine media player) -> Video Player (xine)
kview (picture viewer) -> Picture Viewer (kview)
ding (ding) -> Dictionary (ding)
k3b (CD & DVD Burning) -> CD & DVD Burning (k3b)
and so on...
As you can see the entries change form "program name (task related description)" to "task related description (program name)". Most novices in linux and using a computer at all can't deal with the most program names (e.g. k3b), but they all can deal with the task descriptions. So the task descriptions should be in the first place.

I hope these suggestions will help Knoppix to improve the usability.

Cheers, Martin

[Calvi Risorta]

Hello:

I fully agree with you and second you in your request.

I've been using MS software since I started (rather late, I admit) with computers in the advent of DOS 5.0 and make a living these days from being a sysadmin for a public office setup with a couple of servers running NT4.0 and 67+ W98SE desktops with their respective users attached. ;-/

My aim is to to migrate the servers to Linux AND set up everyone else's desktop running Linux and their basic office and email software but although it is getting easier as time goes on (Knoppix has been a big boom in this respect), it is still hard and the state of things being what they are, it seems that my goals are rather far from being accomplished.

Just my $0.02 ...

Cheers,

CIV

[user unknown]

I agree to following issues:

- remove multi occurences
- sort by task (but of course mention the real name too - not only 3 times: 'ImageViewers')
- remove cmd-line-tools from menu (but of course just from menu).

Probably remove some tools which never left beta-status - some of the ImageTools for instance from the menu.

[Cuddles]

I tend to agree with everything mentioned...

Having come from a "Windows" World, the menu in Knoppix, was, daunting, more of an astonishment. WOW, look at all the programs, kinda thing...

But, as I began to "get used to" Knoppix, I tend to only "hang around" a few programs. I use KWrite pretty much for "notepad", KWord for "serious" M$ Word stuff, Xine for media - mostly DVD playing, and a mixture of Audacity and ReZound for audio playback and recording. Mozilla for web-surfing, and KMail for email. KDiskFree and Info Center for system information, and GKrellM for monitoring system specifics, thats it folks, all the rest is just "clutter".

I have to admit, I run Gimp a few times, but mostly, I learn something new about a program, and decide if I am going to "assimilate" the program into my "normal" usage, or I just know its there if I ever need it again. I don't go around just "clicking" a program to see what it does, so the adventure of "what does that do?" doesn't appeal to me, especially if it doesn't "say" what it does, in the "extended" text, or is a "cryptic" acronym.

Thankfully, in my "newness" of this new OS, most of the programs I would need, or were looking for, had those "extended" text information, and the rest, are simply "uncharted territory" still.

For most people, they are coming from Windows, and seeing this interface, and program naming convention, with new eyes. They know what they want to run, but have no clue the name of it. The "extended" text helps in this transition. These people are looking for a program that does this, like KUser123 said, I want to use a Media Player. Having Xine in the Multimedia catagory, and even under the Video section, is good, but if they don't know what the name is, they won't "see" it. The focus in the menus are more geared to people who "know" the names first, and what they do, if it is provided in parenthesis, lastly. For someone in Windows, the program name was immaterial, what it does, is foremost important. Lastly, the "reverse" of the displayed menu entries would also assist these people in learning the "program" and the translation to the new OS. (as in the example provided by KUser123, k3b, first concern what it does, then what its name is, not the reverse, would help "someone" find the program they need to do this, and then begin to help them learn that k3b is used for this.)

This brings up a "peeve" I have always had with "Computer Language" online documentation... They have a search engine for finding your help, but it only works if you know what the function is called. In most cases, you don't know what the function is called, you know what function it is supposed to do, not what its called. i.e. "I want a function that gives me the ASCII value of a character?" -=- You don't know what the function name is, thats what you need to look for the function, in essence, the search is backwords, you need the description of the function to find the name of the function, and the engine is geared toward you knowing what the name is, but not what it does. I think the Knoppix "menus" are the same way... You need to find the "function" first, and the name second...

Just my two schillings worth,
Ms. Cuddles

[probono]

afaik "talking names" can be configured somewhere in the KDE menu setup options. Some more esoteric utilities could be removed from the CD altogether.

[user unknown]

But what do you think is esoteric?

Keep in mind, that a lot of experienced linux users use knoppix - one reason: slow modem-line.

I saw somebody asking for LynX, and this is a well known Linux-Standard-Tool.

I'm highly interested in every developers stuff: compilers, libs, ...

[NamShubX]

I believe command-line programs don't belong in a GUI menu...

My personal opinion, obviously