Interface concept: Collapsing menu line

Windows puts the menu line right underneath the title line at the top of every window. (See illustration 1.) Mac OS puts it at the very top for the active window. (See illustration 2.) KDE lets the user choose from one of the two. All desktop environments gives the not-so-frequently-used menu line much importance in their interfaces. But does the menu line really need all that dedicated space? Maybe it is time to think different.

The advantage to Windows’ approach is that the menu line is always available, kept in context, and you have one for every of your open windows.

Illustration 1: Windows’ menu line

The advantage to Mac OS’s approach is that the menu line does not take up so much space; thus allowing for smaller windows and easier window management for multiple windows. Apple keeps the menu line out of the way by giving it dedicated space.

Illustration 2: Mac OS X’s menu line

In both approaches the user always know where to look for the menu line.

I personally feel that the menu line takes up too much space. Microsoft seams to agree with me as many Windows Vista applications does not have a menu line at all! However I disagree with their practise of removing it all together. It is a way of interacting with applications that users are familiar and comfortable with. Even though it is clunky and have not changed much since the early nineties.

I think the menu line should be kept within the window it is supposed to be used by. So I disapprove of the top-of-screen approach on Mac OS. However I usually have a lot of applications open so managing large windows is a problem. Uncluttering the windows by removing the menu line does help solve this problem.

Collapsing approach

The golden middle way is having it both ways. By having it underneath the window titles, and not having it underneath the window titles. I am not contradicting myself, but I am talking about collapsing (or hiding) the menu line when it is not in use. Imagine:

The menu line would be collapsed by default. By clicking on the title line or holding Alt on the keyboard; the menu line would expand into the window from the black line separating the title line and main area of the window. Then the menu line would collapse again when the user had preformed the action or selecting something else. Double clicking on the menu line or pressing Alt twice would toggle the menu line as expanded for that window.

This behaviour could be expanded into less useful toolbars by user configuration too.

Expanding/collapsing would maybe have an icon next to the minimize, expand, and close actions; and the toggle would maybe have an icon on the right side of the menu line/toolbar.

Illustration 3: My proposed collapse interface, expanded with icons

What do you think? Would you like to hide the menu line? Do you even use it!? –if not, what do you use instead (keyboard shortcuts, toolbar icons, written commands, …)?

« ENSO is open! Launch that app! | Home | Note to self »

2 comments

Concept also posted to the kde-usability emailing list. I will post any development or offsprings of this concept to this blog.

Comment by Daniel Aleksandersen at 2008-04-19 @023.

It is not a good idea. Collapsing menu by clicking on button near "x" buttons will produce many menus hidden by mistake.

If someone will click on "0" without thinking and hide menu he may be confused. That is why Amarok crew disabled hiding menu. They completely removed this option because there were too many posts "where is my menu?? I want my menu back!"

If you want to hide menu (which is unusual in itself) you have CTRL+M. And it is enough IMO.

Comment by Koko at 2008-04-21 @373.

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