PR #3773

[uwestoehr]

The PartDesign menu is too long to fit into smaller screens. Even with a 22'' screen it almost occupies the full height:

current menu

Old-PD-menu.jpg (219.48 KiB) Viewed 1530 times

With https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/3773 I shorten it by grouping some features into subitems:

new menu

New-PD-menu.jpg (199.09 KiB) Viewed 1530 times

[vocx]

The PartDesign menu is too long to fit into smaller screens. Even with a 22'' screen it almost occupies the full height:
...

This is the perfect topic to discuss in the PartDesign subforum, instead of the Pull request subforum.

As I said in the pull request, I would favor using more top level menus, instead of nesting menus inside others. There is no rule that says that a workbench should only create one top level menu; for example, now Draft, Arch, create various menus to distribute the commands.

[uwestoehr]

This is the perfect topic to discuss in the PartDesign subforum, instead of the Pull request subforum.

OK. I thought PRs are discussed here.

As I said in the pull request, I would favor using more top level menus, instead of nesting menus inside others. There is no rule that says that a workbench should only create one top level menu; for example, now Draft, Arch, create various menus to distribute the commands.

As I wrote in the PR, I am open for further steps, I just want to fix the situation that on my 15'' laptop the menu is too long. So I think it is better than what we have at the moment.

Concerning several top level menus, I am more and more opposed. As newbie a year ago it was very helpful to se all features of a Workbench in one menu that has its name. We had last year the discussion for TechDraw and My PR here follows its path of keeping one top level menu.

but let's see it from the average user perspective:
- being quick means use toolbar buttons, one action, one click - fast and convenient
- not sure what is possible means open the menu and look what this WB provides. For example this way I found cool features of the Draft WB

Having several top-level menus had the disadvantage that it is not clear at the first look what belongs to what Workbench and what it a general thing.

However, if there is a majority who like several top level menus, I can live with this as well.

[chrisb]

but let's see it from the average user perspective:
- being quick means use toolbar buttons, one action, one click - fast and convenient
- not sure what is possible means open the menu and look what this WB provides. For example this way I found cool features of the Draft

I think that's exactly how menus are widely used. A submenu containing just the via icon available commands would in most cases create immediately enough space for the rest.
If there are that many entries in the menu which don't have an icon and make the menu overflow it may be sensible to think about more toplevel menus.

[wmayer]

Concerning several top level menus, I am more and more opposed. As newbie a year ago it was very helpful to se all features of a Workbench in one menu that has its name. We had last year the discussion for TechDraw and My PR here follows its path of keeping one top level menu.

Sub-menus are only sensible up to certain level (maximum 2) as otherwise it's very painful to invoke a function. The problem is that it's already quite time-consuming to go through the sub-menu hierarchy and you must be very careful because if not and your cursor moves outside the sub-menu it will disappear and you have to do the procedure again.

In the PR I suggested to move the sketch-based commands and datum & shape binder commands to their own top-level menus. And if you look at the toolbars there is not one monolithic toolbar containing all function but it's at least split into two toolbars.

And IMO for a total newbie I think it's easier if he sees a top-level menu Sketcher because then he already may assume what should be behind.

[vocx]

As I wrote in the PR, I am open for further steps, I just want to fix the situation that on my 15'' laptop the menu is too long. So I think it is better than what we have at the moment.

Yes, I think having this organization is better than nothing.

Concerning several top level menus, I am more and more opposed. As newbie a year ago it was very helpful to se all features of a Workbench in one menu that has its name. We had last year the discussion for TechDraw and My PR here follows its path of keeping one top level menu.

I think a newbie anyway has to learn many things, so whether that is in one menu or several menus is not a big issue. Whenever you change the workbench you see the interface changing, giving you more menus, so it would be natural to investigate all options. More important, in my opinion, is that there is clear documentation, describing the tools. If this is well documented in the wiki, then the user can find new tools without much difficulty.

I agree that the quickest is to use a single button to launch a command. But if you must use a menu, it's better to (1) open a menu, (2) click on a tool; that is only two actions. When you have submenus, you have to add one more action (expansion) for every submenu, which makes usage a bit slower.

[uwestoehr]

Here is a next step:
https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/3787

This adds a Sketch menu.
I don't know what is the best for datums. In my opinion they belong more to PD than to its own menu. So please take over from me after https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/3787 is in (if it will go in).

[vocx]

...
I don't know what is the best for datums. In my opinion they belong more to PD than to its own menu. ...

As you know there has been discussions about using the Datum objects outside a PartDesign Body, particularly in workflows with Assembly4. So maybe it makes sense for them to be in their own menu.

[openBrain]

Wouldn't that be more efficient that we discuss and define how we want the PDN menu to be ? Then submit one global PR rather than sparse atomic ones ?

[uwestoehr]

Wouldn't that be more efficient that we discuss and define how we want the PDN menu to be ? Then submit one global PR rather than sparse atomic ones ?

My experience is that this is not efficient because then you often discuss for ages. So step by step where every step gets an agreement.
In this case:
1. step : Menu is too long, shorten it -> done
2. step: sort our Sketch features -> I guess this gets an agreement as well
3. step: take care of datums
...