Re: [Gretl-users] Recent menu changes

On Sat, 5 Dec 2009, Sven Schreiber wrote: [for adding an additional top-level menu item] Don't worry, you're not. My comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Agreed here. I myself floated the idea of consolidating (somehow) the Data, View and Sample menus -- reducing 3 to 2 perhaps -- and if that were possible it could make room for another entry, but on reflection (and after consolidating several items under those headings) I'm not enthusiastic about this. Having moved some items, I think the Data and Sample menus are now well focused. I would not want to give up the Sample menu, because setting the sample is a basic and common task; it shouldn't be buried under Data, IMO (plus it would be nastily backward incompatible to "hide" it). The View menu is somewhat miscellaneous, but we're talking the art of the possible here. Solely on the criterion of "clear focus" of menu headings we'd have to divide this into three headings: 1) "Windows" (or some such) 2) "Graphs" 3) "Multivariate statistics that are not quite 'models'". That's obviously a non-starter. I think you just have to get used to what's under gretl's View menu. With any complex program, you have to "get used to" the menus to some extent; they can be better or worse designed but they can never be totally transparent. Then, OK, finally, the (top-level) "Window(s)" menu. Having experimented, I'm now against it. I don't think it earns its keep. Most of the GUI software I use regularly doesn't have it: Emacs - no (duh!) Firefox - no Gimp - no Inkscape - no Gnumeric - no (it's under View, as with current gretl) OpenOffice - yes, but it's aiming to be an MS-lookalike. Berend mentions OS X. I agree that if we ever get cosy enough with OS X to populate the top-of-screen application menubar, then that should have a Windows item since it's very standard. But that's a different issue, IMO. Allin.