Re: [platform-ui-dev] Context menu on Project Navigator not really conte

[David Wegener <dpwegener@xxxxxxxxx>]

As a long time Eclipse user and a software user in general I would like 
to add some caution to this thread.  Getting back to a point that Wim J 
made early on, please be careful not to create a situation where you 
have to understand every possible application context in order to figure 
out how to get to the menu item to show up.  New users aren't going to 
understand the various different contexts available in Eclipse depending 
on the Editor/View that has the focus.

I can remember when Microsoft decided to change their default menu 
behaviour in Office around Office 2000 time.  Their menus only displayed 
what they had determined were the most helpful options and intentionally 
hid the rest.  You had to hover the right spot on the menu to get the 
full menu to appear.  As a new user, it was extremely frustrating to try 
and find features.  You had to hold your mouse over each menu 
individually to get the initial display and then wait an additional 
couple of seconds to see the hidden items display then move to the next 
menu.  I was extremely grateful to the person who eventually showed me 
that I could disable hidden menus and have the full menu displayed all 
the time.

The hidden items were a problem for a couple of reasons.  First, you had 
no easy way of learning what features were available.  If you were 
looking for some feature such as highlight selected text, you would have 
to pause over each menu item waiting for the hidden display timer to 
expire and the full menus to appear.  Second because the items were 
hidden, you couldn't accidentally stumble upon a useful feature because 
you would never see it in the menu.

I realize that the Project Navigator menu is a little different, but I 
can see similar frustrations occurring for new users.  Please make sure 
that the majority of new users really feel that the menu is a problem 
before redesigning for what you think they want.

Also, please keep the documentation developers in mind.  Help 
documentation, online tutorials, and how to videos will all likely have 
screen shots of the menu or parts of the menu.  If menu look becomes 
dependent on context, it will become difficult to include screen shots 
without giving specific instructions where to click on the application.  
Existing documentation will quickly fall out of date.  This can be an 
additional source of frustration for new users who try to follow along 
to the documentation but can't find the menu item shown in the tutorial.