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58 Comments
- Jyaif, on 09/02/2008, -4/+32"Google Code" in title irrelevant.
Trying to get more diggs? - boneit, on 09/02/2008, -0/+17It reminds me of the character controlling in Neverwinter Nights.
- webgeek2point0, on 09/02/2008, -0/+11A radial right-click menu is faster than other menus. This is explained by Fitts' Law, which states that the smaller and further away a target is the more time it takes to hit that target. A radial menu gives you a big target extremely close to your mouse. It's very fast to use, and more applications should take advantage of them.
- forteller, on 09/01/2008, -1/+12Installation file at getdeb.net:
http://www.getdeb.net/app/Circular+Application+Men ...
Don't know if it's latest version or not. - millifoo, on 09/02/2008, -1/+10
Don Hopkins would be proud...
Pie Menus, 1991 - Don Hopkins: http://www.piemenus.com/DDJPieMenuArticle.html
http://missig.org/julian/blog/2005/12/28/class-pro ...
http://doc.trolltech.com/qq/qq09-qt-solutions.html - watcht, on 09/02/2008, -0/+8Hmm but linux users don't have to pay for their version though.
- DontThinkSo, on 09/01/2008, -0/+6Getdeb is on r22, svn is r49. If you want to compile, make sure you download the required libraries. I'm not sure exactly which ones are required (I just installed gnome-devel, which installs all the gnome libraries along with development IDEs for writing your own programs). You'll probably need at least libgtk2.0-dev, and maybe libgnome2-dev (can anyone confirm?)
- Vadi0, on 09/02/2008, -0/+6You'd add "ubuntu" if you wanted more diggs.
- watcht, on 09/02/2008, -0/+6Must be the same reason for why your sentence structure sucks.
- DavidGX, on 09/02/2008, -0/+6"why people use vista when already there is a good operating system called LINUX?"
Fixed. - doctordbx, on 09/02/2008, -0/+6I believe this is referred to as "Mystery Meat Navigation".
- gringer, on 09/02/2008, -2/+7Updated
27th August 2009 - Added a reflection effect by default.
Gosh... they're predicting the future *again* - StealthTomato, on 09/01/2008, -1/+6Like Kommando, but more awesome and for GNOME.
I likes. - KyleGoetz, on 09/02/2008, -1/+6MrDoug: I think you must not be a native English speaker, so I'll give you a grammar lesson to help out. "Since X" means "beginning with X and continuing until the present." Thus, "since win95" means "BEGINNING WITH win95 [and excluding any OS that came before]."
Here's evidence: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/since - saigumi, on 09/02/2008, -0/+4Actually, pie menus are more productive than linear menus.
A little paper one of my relatives wrote (I can't remember if he was Chief Technologist at Xerox Parc at the time he wrote it, so this isn't just some college students crud.) http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/57167.57182 - MrDoug, on 09/02/2008, -2/+6Ok, I get that it's a cool gadget to have, but does this REALLY enhance productivity at all? It seems to take up a lot of real estate, and every operating system since Win95 has had some sort of an expandable menu hierarchy.
(Note: I'm not condoning the use of Win95...just pointing out that everone had it before them.) - openprivacy, on 09/02/2008, -0/+4Looks like a new implementation of Don Hopkins' 1980's era pie menus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_menu
Nice to see them updated for Gnome... - thePTS, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3It doesn't look very good, but it's definitely a good idea for functional purposes
(to know instinctively in which direction an option lies, rather than know in what distance it lies) - Diggnabbit, on 09/02/2008, -1/+4What's the point of circular menus when you're using keyboard/mouse input? It doesn't seem much (if at all) more efficient than the regular menus.
Obviously, they make sense if you're using a game controller input, which is why many console games have started using them, but I don't see the point for kb/m. - watcht, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3They should shrink it down, or allow user sizing prefs. Tough decision for me to use since i use Gnome-do which is pretty fast to open programs.
- Peterix, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3This thing needs keyboard navigation. Like make the 'petals' different colors and color the number buttons on your keyboard accordingly.
Bind the menu to the meta key (windows key).
Meta opens menu. Numbers are for navigation, normal typing is for search, backspace returns up one level, escape or meta key closes menu.
Also, add option to show only one 'flower' and add extensive theming. - neko, on 09/02/2008, -0/+3I think it's -better- to use screen realestate if you have it. This kind of menu looks like the sort of thing that only pops up when you activate it (rightclick on desktop ala WM? perhaps even turning it into a hot corner?)
I'd rather have something that took up a large portion of the screen while I had it open, than be forced to use a "gynecologist interface", to use a lovely term someone coined regarding the KDE4 launcher.
I'm a little concerned that some app icons might not be immediately obvious, but maybe they can fit some circular text around the edges for that. As an option, naturally. - thePTS, on 09/02/2008, -1/+3You're going to get flamed.. this was in all OSes way before Win95 hehe, just saying ;p
Also, I think the amount of "desktop realestate" would be scaleable and configurable.. - rabidbob, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2Yeah, shame they dropped it for NWN2. :-(
- rowjimmy, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2to everybody saying this uses up desktop real-estate, what else are you using your desktop for? i'm assuming that this would always be under any programs - do you really have that much crap (folders, files, symlinks, etc) on your desktop?
- dcherryholmes, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2Compiled just fine, but segfaults with any mouse click on Ubuntu 8.04.
- magnet14, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2You stupid are or just acting like that? [mimicking the sentence structure btw]
- edtruckell, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2reminds me of the circular menus option in Quicksilver. while theyre probably no much better for using a mouse im sure they would be useful on a touchscreen with gestures...
if something like that is in the pipeline. - bradleyland, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2@diggnabbit
"I'm not sure how much faster it really is than a drop-down, right-click menu."
When using a nested drop-down menu, users are forced to navigate a (literal) linear maze. Think about the path your mouse takes when navigating a nested drop-down: down, right, down, right (or the inverse). UI designers get around this by implementing menu switching delays that allow you to move outside the menu path temporarily, which greatly improves the situation, but they still don't work as well as radial menus. Radial menus can offer much wider navigation paths without sacrificing increased distance required to reach the target. - zmigliozzi, on 09/02/2008, -0/+2So bleeding edge they are devloping next year!
27th August 2009 - Added a reflection effect by default. This stresses the processor somewhat; but it can be easily turned off (see below). Also added a highlight around the edge incase it's displayed over a black background. - NSResponder, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2I wonder how many more times people are going to invent pie menus without knowing that Don came up with the idea back in the mid 1980s?
-jcr - MrDoug, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2Which is why I said "SINCE win95" insinuation that they were the last one to the party....and put the "Note:" at the bottom...before I submitted the comment....
- opusaz, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1Firefox has a similar add-on easyGestures http://easygestures.mozdev.org/index.html "It is a pie menu that pops up inside the browser when you click the mouse and then let you perform various actions at the tip of the mouse pointer with minimum mouse movement."
I remember trying it ages ago. iirc, I used for a while but context menus were so ingrained I just went back to them. - StevesJobs, on 09/02/2008, -2/+3Might as well say Digg This:
- sandiegodude, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1Looks pretty, but I don't know if I'd really want it. Takes up a lot of real estate. Anybody using it have any comments on usability?
- xolot1, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1does this display for every right click menu, or only the application ("start") menus?
- harmil, on 09/05/2008, -0/+1"More productive" is a subjective view. Try walking a new user through icon-only menus over the phone. "OK, do you see the little computer-looking icon? No? Well, it's kind of like an old-style CRT. What's a CRT? Ah... well, like a tube television. Wait, how old are you? Oh, nevermind. Well, click on the thing that looks like a fishbowl. No, not the fish! Oh for the love of God, not the FISH!"
- Diggnabbit, on 09/02/2008, -0/+1I guess I can kind of see that. I'm not sure how much faster it really is than a drop-down, right-click menu. (Whereas on a game controller, the radial design makes lots of sense, because you aim thumbsticks in particular directions.)
- DreadKnight, on 09/03/2008, -0/+1Hope a similar one comes along for KDE4
I rather find pie-menus intuitive / fast to browse. Really like them! - gettarat, on 11/24/2008, -0/+1Compiled just fine, but segfaults with any mouse click on Ubuntu 8.04.
http://applebeesmenu.org/ - haterofps3, on 09/03/2008, -0/+1Decent idea still very early in development I would say, needs more thought into the layout and art of the menu. small and compact is were its at.
- Soldierboi, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1No, not trying to get more Diggs. I utilize the "shareaholic" extension for FF. With this extension, one can easily submit stories or websites to Digg. When it does so, it places the website's title for the submission's title, go ahead, take a look. Notice how they're the same?? I simply added Awesome to the beginning.
- shaanw, on 09/02/2008, -1/+2quicksilver has had something very similar to this for a while now called "Constellation mode"
- computershack, on 09/02/2008, -0/+0ROFLMAO. Yours isn't exactly anything to shout about.
- Estoye, on 09/02/2008, -1/+1Now I want to play Frenzic.
- phreakhead, on 09/08/2008, -0/+0It's not about "efficient use of screenspace", it's about making the movements you make with your mouse hand as short and quick as possible. When you use a rectangle, you always have to move your mouse a different distance to get a certain menu item. When you use a circle, you only have to move your mouse a minimal distance in the correct direction to get ANY menu item. Plus, after using it several times you have the muscle memory of the directions of commonly used menu items, so you can access things without even looking at the screen much more quickly than searching a rectangular menu each time!
There was a paper written on it by Don Hopkins: http://www.piemenus.com/DDJPieMenuArticle.html. I suggest reading it before making more unfounded comments. Even better, try the RadialContext extension for Firefox. It makes browsing sooooooo much faster and more productive! - phreakhead, on 09/08/2008, -0/+0I would say it's not a problem of desktop real-estate, but the giant menus defeat one of the main purposes of pie menus: that it only takes tiny mouse movements in a direction to get the menu item you want. With circles this big, you have to make giant gestures with your hand to get where you're going.
Granted, I don't have Gnome so I haven't tried them out, but I think the creator would benefit from looking at the RadialContext extension for Firefox. The icons could be much smaller, shortening the radius you have to move to choose a second-level item. Also notice that with RadialContext there is always only one circle, centered around the cursor, which changes depending on the menu so the movement required is minimal (simply a direction, not a distance). The key of pie-menus is the short gestures you make, not the flashy graphics or pretty icons.
However, I'm glad to see these coming into the mainstream! I've been waiting for pie menus for a long time! -
Show 51 - 62 of 62 discussions
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