[Qgis-developer] plugin's menu organization

[Micha Silver]

Borys Jurgiel wrote:

> Dnia niedziela, 28 marca 2010 o 19:49:37 MORREALE Jean Roc napisał(a):
>   
>> At Vienna, Boris did a talk about the management of the plugins and
>> their position in the menus. If I remember correctly it was agreed that
>> plugins should be dispatched in the pre-existent menu to avoid having
>> one 3km long menu.
>>
>> For example, Stefan Ziegler's CadTool is creating is own menu in QGIS
>> with only two items in it which is not consistent :
>> - the old fashion way would have been to create a new entry in the
>> plugin's menu
>> - the other way would be to create an entry in the 'vector' menu and
>> representing there all the possible actions so one could reach them with
>> keyboard
>>
>> What is your point of view ?
>>     
As I see it, QGIS offers two somewhat unique advantages: first, the 
basic installation is quite easy to get into for new (and even 
experienced) users. It doesn't overwhelm you like other GIS software.
But on the other hand, thru the plugin's you get access to a huge set of 
GIS tools. In order to maintain these good qualities:
- the base installation (core features) should stay as clean as 
possible, without mixing plugin menus into the core menus
- plugins should add their own buttons and/or menus (like now) but with 
the addition of categorization, as Borys says. Thus all plugins that 
deal with PostGIS should be in the same menu or toolbar; all plugins 
that interact with GPS in the same menu, raster tools together (already 
partly done), the R plugins under one menu, etc...
Just my 2 cents worth from a user's perspective.
-- 
Micha
>
> Actually we didn't achieve any consensus. One of the ideas was to add them to 
> the bottom of each menu, after a spacer separating them from core functions. 
> As we have about 130 plugins today and the number is still growing, probably 
> we will need to group them into submenus placed under the spacers. Maybe we 
> have too many plugins ;-) In the best case, menus and toolbars should be 
> configurable by user.
>
> But the first step is just the categorisation. As I'm still completely busy 
> since the HF in Vienna, I won't touch it until 1.5 is out. Then will be the 
> highest time to do it for the 2.0, aaaggrrh!
> _______________________________________________
> Qgis-developer mailing list
> Qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
>   


-- 
Micha Silver
Arava Development Co. +972-52-3665918
http://www.surfaces.co.il