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Socoder -> Concept/Design -> Menu bars are superfluous
Tue, 30 Jun 2009, 15:19
Phoenix
 		At least partly. In Firefox I have it tucked away in the top-right corner, on the same row as the address bar and the search bar. If I could, I'd remove it altogether. But the menu bar is so useless in many other programs too, or at least only used for a handful of its possible purposes.

Let's take the calculator which comes bundled with Windows 7. This is the menu structure:
  • View
    • Standard
    • Scientific
    • Programmer
    • Statistics
    • History
    • Digit grouping
    • Basic
    • Unit conversion
    • Date calculation
    • Worksheets
      • Mortgage
      • Vehicle lease
      • Fuel economy (mpg)
      • Fuel economy (L/100 km)
  • Edit
    • Copy
    • Paste
  • Help
    • View Help
    • About Calculator

I never use that functionality, apart from changing from programmer mode to scientific mode. So why is it there, polluting my poor pixels? Shouldn't there be better way to do it? Do you actually use the menu bars in your day-to-day applications? I don't even use it in Visual Studio, which comes jam-packed with them.
Tue, 30 Jun 2009, 15:23
HoboBen
 		Dunno if you've used the Tiny Menu firefox extension?



I've only got View and Tools showing and like you it's on the same row as the URL bar. I've removed my search bar completely, too.

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Tue, 30 Jun 2009, 15:43
Jayenkai
 		Google Chrome has no menu to speak of.
There's the Tab thing up top, {the back/forward/reload, the address bar, the page menu button, the tool menu button, (all on one bar)}, then the bookmark bar.

Hiding a menu into a single clickable icon seems to be the best way to do it, if you ask me.

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''Load, Next List!''
Wed, 01 Jul 2009, 22:27
JL235
 		IE 8 allows you to hide the menu bar and it reappeares when you press the Alt key. The Ribbon is also a very good alternative.

I use tiny menu for FF too. But overall menu's give you a place to list all the functionality of the application. If you use toolbars you end up with half the screen covered in buttons.
Fri, 03 Jul 2009, 09:04
mindstorm8191
 		Yeah, I can still understand why menu bars are still around. How else would you show the many options a normal-given program would have? In MS Paint I'm frequently using the rotate, scale, and image properties features of the application, which nobody would know about if it wasn't in the menu.

But I do see your point, too. It takes up space which could be used for much more useful things. Here in firefox I still have the menu at top, but it only fills 1/5 of the screen width, leaving the other 4/5 on the right blank.

What I personally hate is when newly installed applications seem happy to take over your computer. I installed AVG a few months ago, and it happily installed a Firefox toolbar for me - full of features I neither needed, or wanted. And for a while, AVG insisted I leave it on there, because it came back every time I restarted Firefox.

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