Add an option to open submenus in the screen's center as well

AS7RIDENIED commented 2 weeks ago

Description

Feature 1 - It would be very nice if it was possible to strictly fix the menu at the center. Right now, if you uncheck "open at pointer", the menu opens in the center, but when you open any sub menu, it moves off-center

Feature 2 - It would be nice if sub menus could open without having to click on it I know I can use turbo mode, but it is very inconveniently. If the menu is centered when open, while you're moving your mouse to the item you want, you might accidentally hit the sub menu and it will instantly open, shifting everything. I want with all my soul that all the elements were in their specific places and that nothing on the screen was flying in different directions

Feature 3 - Why minimize the main menu when opening the sub menu? As for me it would be nice if the sub menu would just move aside and open there, without touching the main menu in any way. I guess in addition to this you could add the ability to open the specific sub menus by default.

Feature 4 - Also should be good to be able to turn off turbo mode. I need to fully stop my mouse to didn't open anything accidentally while I'm opening menu, it's very uncomfortable

Also i run into a few bugs

Any press on any keyboard button would alternately output all symbols like "`1234567890-=qwertyuiop[]\ ...etc". No idea how to reproduce it, but it was fixed when I went to the settings menu and wrote a couple characters in the main menu name
If you open the menu and alt tab to another application, kando doesn't return focus to itself. We click on the overlay with the mouse and everything is ok, but if we press esc or any other key, the overlay will not close, because the focus is on the other application.

Affected Desktop Environments

All

Additional Information

No response

Schneegans commented 2 weeks ago

Hi there! Thank you very much for your suggestions. However, next time, please open separate issues for separate things. Else we cannot properly track this and the discussion will get very confusing.

Now let's have a look at your points:

I think this is a good idea. The current behaviour is meant for touch screens, where "open at pointer" is pretty much undefined. The behaviour you are describing is something different but could work as well. Yet it will not work with gesture (aka Marking Mode).
I do not get this one. How should a submenu be opened without clicking if everything is locked to the center? If you open a submenu (somehow) it will move to the center and a child item will end up below your pointer. Which - if it is a submenu - will be opened instantly as well...?
Why would you want this? It clutters the screen and you cannot select anything in there anyways...
I think this can be solved in a better way. Some movement threshold which is required to enter turbo mode. Or maybe Turbo mode could be disabled if "Open in Center" is enabled.

Regarding the bug reports - please report them as bug-issues with all the required information.

AS7RIDENIED commented 2 weeks ago

I do not get this one. How should a submenu be opened without clicking if everything is locked to the center?

For example, simply by pointing the mouse over a circle and hovering over it for ~0.5s. About the same as turbo mode, but with a delay and the need to hover exactly on the circle to avoid false openings

If you open a submenu (somehow) it will move to the center and a child item will end up below your pointer. Which - if it is a submenu - will be opened instantly as well...?

Referring to my third feature, I propose an alternative approach to the sub menu, so that the previous one would not minimize when opening a new one, but would stay in place, and the new one would move a little further away. I think it would be convenient for many people

Why would you want this? It clutters the screen and you cannot select anything in there anyways...

Well, at least it would look better, and it makes navigating when you have multiple sub menus more convenient. I'm not pushing for the addition. If others have positive feedback about this suggestion, then you can think about implementation. In any case, the priority goal is all sorts of bug fixes and functional addictions, not dubious visual changes

Schneegans commented 2 weeks ago

I think you missed the point of a pie / marking menu here! The strength of Kando is that you do not have to directly click on items. You can simply flick the mouse approximately in the right direction and you're done. If you had to aim at the circles and hover them for a short period, you would be at least ten times slower!

This is all due to something called Fitts' Law. Therefore, the click targets of Kando extend all the way to the edge of the screen. If you try to embrace the way Kando works (it's unconventional, I know) you will see that you can select things even three levels deep in well below a second!

Both things you suggest are in stark contrast to this idea. Therefore I will (most likely) not add them.

However, turbo mode will work properly with centered menus in the next version and I will think about a mode were child items are opened in the center of the screen as well.

Schneegans commented 1 week ago

I'll close this in favor of #485. Thanks again for your suggestions!

Schneegans commented 6 days ago

I implemented a proof-of-concept version of an "Anchored Mode". Here's a video: https://github.com/kando-menu/kando/issues/485#issuecomment-2189152282

If you have any thoughts, maybe you could add them to that issue :smile:

kando-menu / kando