[maemo-developers] Feature request for Application Menu In Thumb To Take 2 Columns

[From: Neil MacLeod]

You might want to look at bug 990[1] and the comments from Nokia which suggest that Thumb mode will become the default (certainly for the Home menu, though not sure about the Application menu).

In 3.2007.10-1, the Application menu in Thumb mode is very poor if applications with long textual descriptions are installed since the text descriptions for each application are displayed below each application (even if blank) without truncation or wrapping, making the menus very wide in some cases.

For example I have "Quiver" (Image Viewer) installed and if you navigate in Thumb mode to the Extras menu you'll find the Extras menu is so wide (due to the Quiver app description "View and manage your photos and images") that it opens _over the top_ of the "Extras" parent menu thus making it impossible to navigate back up a level in the menu hierarchy. If I were to choose the Extras menu by mistake I have to dismiss the menu and start all over from the beginning (with the excessive scrolling this entails and described in your email - note the very slowing scrolling is/was discussed in bug 133[2]). Not really the most user friendly menu system in the world! :)

The Thumb mode menu should truncate the text description for each application or a better suggestion would be to display the textual description as an infoprint if the user highlights the applicaton with the d-pad (with a second or so of delay). Multiple columns would also help but the menu must allow the user to navigate back up the menu hierarchy at all times, and excessively long application titles would need to be truncated.

>From the sound of bug 990, the menu system is all change in the future - I just hope more thought has been given to thumb mode this time around than when it first appeared.

1. https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=990
2. https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=133