[platform-ui-dev] Proposal - Context and pulldown menus affecting resour

["Lucinio Santos" <santosg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The current organization and distribution of menu items among context and
pulldown menus involving resources in Navigator View is somewhat
unbalanced.  Consequently the context menus are  too long and seemingly
disorganized, while certain pulldown menus (Project) are underutilized,
thus keeping inconspicuous important items (e.g., Project properties)

     The following proposal addresses this issue:

   1- Reorganize the context menus: Better Grouping (according to semantics
   and usage)  and separators (see summary at the end).

   2- Remove "Open Perspective" from the context menu.  It doesn't belong
   here since this action is not "tied" to the selected resource/object
   (e.g., the opened perspective doesn't select the current resource
   automatically).  This is already in the "Perspective" pulldown.
   Although it could be argued that having it in the context menu provides
   a "shortcut", given the large number of items, we have to be selective
   and only place items in the context menu that pertain to the selected
   object/resource... to keep the context menu to a manageable size.

   3) Remove "Go To".  As above.   This is just a navigational shortcut we
   can do without (arguably) .   These GoTo operations are provided already
   in the Navigator toolbar (it's already close to a selected object, so
   there is not a lot of "mouse travel" gain anyway.

   3- Open Project and Close Project are complementary and mutually
   exclusive.  One one is enabled the other one is disabled.  There is no
   need to have entries for both.  There should be a single "Open Project"
   or "Close Project" depending on the current state of the project.

   4 -The Project pulldown is underutilized.  Currently contains a single
   item: Rebuild All. Some of the options exclusively presented in Context
   menus are quite important (Validate, Edit Deployment Descriptor, and
   Properties) and we should surface in the menu bar to make them more
   visible. Thus...
     The Project pulldown should include all the items currently present in
     context menu for a selected project.  If the resource selected is a
     File or (non-project) folder instead of a project, the Project
     pulldown would be populated with the items present in the context menu
     of the project to which the selected File or folder belongs to.

        ... Except the following (context menu items) which would be placed
        under  other pulldowns (instead of in the Projects pulldown)
          - Clipboard items (Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete) would be placed in
          the Edit The following items currently present in context menu
          would be removed.  This items are already in the Edit pulldown
          - Team (Edit pulldown)
          - Replace with (Edit Pulldown)
          - Compare with (Edit Pulldown)
          - Go into (File pulldown)


        Context menu           Pulldown Menu

        New...            File (already there)
        OpenProject/Close Project   Project    (this only shows for
        projects. One entry for both)
        Open              File (this only shows for projects.  Already
        there)
        Refresh from Local          Project (if context menu of a Project)
        or File (if context menu of a File)
        Go into                File
        ----------------------------
        Copy              Edit (already there)
        Move              Edit (already there)
        Rename            Edit (already there)
        Delete            Edit (already there)
        ------------------------------
        Run on Server          Project
        Restart                Project ((this only shows for projects)
        _________________
        Run Validation         Project (this only shows for projects)
        Validate HTML syntax   Tools  (this only shows for files.  This is
        already in the Tools pulldown)
        ------------------------------
        Team              Edit
        Compare with           Edit
        Replace with           Edit
        _________________
        Properties             Project (if context menu of a Project) or
        File (if context menu of a File)


The principles here are:
          - Place all objects pertaining to a selected object in its
          context menu... meaningfully organized
          - Placed generic items having to do with projects in the Projects
          pulldown (in addition to the context menu)
          - Place generic items having to do with files i the File pulldown
          (in addition to the context menu)
          - Place "edit" type items in the Edit pulldown whether the object
          is a file or a project...



                  Lucinio Santos
                  Web Tools Human-Computer Interaction
                  Phone: (919) 543-4813  (tie: 3-4813) -  Fax: (919)
          254-4147
                  Internet: santosg@xxxxxxxxxx