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Seamonkey
UI Specification

Navigator Menus

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Last Modification: 
Author German W. Bauer
Initial Creation Date:  09 March1999 		 Status: Implementable Specification
What's related: 

Design Overview
Design Cheatsheet
Design Details 

 Feature Team
 
 

Older spec, will be updated

 

Summary/Overview

This document desribe the cross-platform Navigator menu structure, as well as hiliting the policy for dynamically extending the menus with net-based functionality and features(even after Seamonkey Navigator has been launched).

Goals

Keep the menu stracture consistent accross apps, platforms - even after functionality may get dynamically added after the launch of Seamonkey. Keeping a basic menu structure intact and making sure it does not break when new apps/services get added later. This will increase learnability and discoverability for end users.

In general these Navigator menus provide a redundant (to enable keyboard Nav and for discoverability) and deeper level of access to Navigator's functionality compared to the top level GUI.

Target Audience

The target user for this feature are Seamonkey Navigator which are expected to consist of about 70% upgraders from 4.x (source: PM) and about 30% users new to Navigator.

User Tasks

 
Fundamental Tasks Intermediate Tasks Advanced Tasks
Common to all data view panes
  • Access Seamonkey functionality with mouse'
  • 'Cue card' for Communicator functionality 
 		 Mouseless access to most Communicator functionality via menmonics (Win, Linux)

Use Keyboard acclerators as shortcut to most commonly used functionality

 Configuring menus and possibly shortcuts (not in Seamonkey)

Design Cheatsheet

Legend:
Areas specific to Nav (that can be extended later) marked like this 
Keyboard shortcuts combined with Ctrl(Win), Cmd(Mac) or Alt(Linux) are marked like this
Keyboard shortcuts to be used stand-alone are marked like this
Notes are marked like this
Keyboard mnemonics (Win, Linux) are marked like this
File Edit View Search

 
 
Go Editor Inserts Bookmarks Tasks (Input: NC, JohnG) Help (Input: VeraH)
 Add Current Page  D 
Customize Bookmarks Bar...
Manage Bookmarks...  B 
Bookmarks Folder 1   >
Bookmarks Folder 2   >
Bookmarks Folder n   > 
Toplevel Bookmark 1
Toplevel Bookmark 2 
Toplevel Bookmark 3
Toplevel Bookmark 4
Toplevel Bookmark 5
Toplevel Bookmark 6 
Toplevel Bookmark 7
Toplevel Bookmark 8
Toplevel Bookmark n

 

Design Details

 

Web Look and Feel

Sea-Monkey will be the first application to have a platform independent look and feel. To this end, there will be one set of menus for both Macintosh and Windows (minus a few exceptions when it comes to some keyboard shortcuts) .

 

Menu Details


File Menu

File Structure Extensibility
New/New...(submenu)
Opens new Nav window as first item, below a submenu giving a access to other core new items.
 
New   >

Open Loc/File...
In order to avoid layering two dialogs on top of each other (4.x) it was decided to seperate out opening web pages using urls from opening files.

Closing/Save...
Same as most apps on OSs,Close will close the current window. Save will save the current web page

Edit and Send
Edit will only show up we do have an Editor standalone application. Sending the page or frame will invoke the message compose dialog as in 4.x. Send Frame should be disabled when the document contains no frames.

Offline...(submenu)
If we have this functionality in Seamonkey this will allow toggle offline state as well as sync items.  OUT FOR Netscape 6.
 
Offline   >
Go Offline
Go Online
Synchronize...

 

Printing...
Standard OS stuff...

Quitting
Quit will quit Seamonkey as a whole.
Location:
Between the Save and offline items

Kinds of items to be put there:
Items that directly relate to global functions in that context, such as "Empty Trash" when viewing folders in Messenger.

Edit Menu

Edit Structure Extensibility
Undo/Redo Transactions
Generally will show the default new item first, before a submenu giving a access to other core new items

Clipboard Transfer...
Same as most apps on OSs

Selection...
Select All... awlays available - refers to selecting all of the content, apps may add app specific selections here

AppSpecific...
This is an area where apps can extend the edit menu if needed. This section may not available on some applications

Preferences...
Common access point to the prefs dialog
Location:
Items can be added to the Selection section as well as below the selection and above the prefs selection

Kinds of items to be put there:
Items that directly affect the selected content or deal with the clipboard. Spell checking may also go there for the Editor.

View Menu

View Structure Extensibility
Toolbars > (submenu)...
This sections lets users toggle the visibility of the toolbars. Hiding toolbars is different than collpasing them via the idrect manipulation UI in that it completely removes that toolbar from view. 
 
Toolbars   >
Show Navigator Bar(X)
Show Bookmarks Bar(X) 
Show Task Bar(X)

 
 

Use Stylesheet...>
This will provide access to viewing content using stylesheets located locally or provided by the author. A checkmark should appear next to the chosen stylesheet. The menu should be split up in two sections that feature the built-in/saved/local stylesheets first and then the author-provided stylesheets like so:
 
Stylesheets   >
Default Style (X)
Built In Style 2
Built In Style 3
Author Provided Stylesheet 1
Author Provided Stylesheet 2

 

Text Size...
This will directly affect the default text size for all content areas

Reload/Stop/Images...
This will affect the content display behavior, similar to the reload and stop buttons on the main toolbar. Show Images can be used to turn off images for faster download and page display.

Page...
Items related to the page source and information related to the page (can we include some security info when this dialog is brought up?) 

Translate > (submenu)
This feature will be driven from Netcenter but will enable users to view web page translated into different language

Character Set...
Similar to 4.5, but:
Rather than making this a huge, unmanagemable window we recommend a picklist dialog
Location:
Between the Save and import/export items

Kinds of items to be put there:
This will include things that affect how the content of the page is viewn, for example if we add the capability to display content using a other style sheets, these will be exposed in this section.

Search Menu

Search Structure Extensibility
Find...
This invokes the find dialog directly related to finding on the currently viewn page

AppSpecific Search...
This is an area where apps can extend the search menu if needed. This section may not available on some applications

Globally accessible Search...
The items below the app specifc search options will always be accessible from the search menu, giving users one consistent entry points to their mosten often used search needs

Smart Search...(placeholder term)
A universal search dialog box. see search specification and search PRD
Location:
In the second section below Find... and the Smart Search... section

Kinds of items to be put there:

App Specifc area

This will be dependent on the app, for example Messenger will be basing its search on the currently active folder, may offer to search one or more levels above in the hierarchy of folders

Other Search services

A set of globally accessible and dynamically updateable search services as determined by PM and Netcenter

Go Menu

Go Structure Extensibility
Start/Home Page
This sections provides users with access to the most basic navigation.

Forward/Forward To>
Session history (window specific):
This will let users go one step forward, or multiple steps via submenu (content equal to popup on Forward toolbar button) This submenu may include up to 10 steps forward tracing of the session history.

Back/Back To>
Session history (window specific):
This will let users go one step forward, or multiple steps via submenu (content equal to popup on Back toolbar button) This submenu may include up to 10 steps back tracing of the session history.

Previously Visited
This sections provides users with access to global History and should include 15 most recently visisted sites. A section below will allow for access to viewing the global history in a separate window.
 
Previously Visited   >
Site 1
Site 2
Site 3
Site 4
Site 5 
Site 6
Site 7
Site 8
Site 9
Site 10 
Site 11
Site 12
Site 13
Site 14
Site 15
View All...  H 

Location:
Below the basic navigation section

Kinds of items to be put there:
This will include items that 'transport' the user to well nown places in the application or the application's content store, for example in Messenger this would include "Next Unread Message" 

Editor Inserted Menus

Insert Format Structure Extensibility
Purpose
These menus get inserted into this location whenever a ender rich text field that can be edited receives focus. These menus are also visible in Mail and IM compose.
 
specific tool plugins make go to the bottom of the Insert or Format menus

Bookmarks

Bookmarks Structure Extensibility
Add Current Page  D 
Customize Bookmarks Bar...
Manage Bookmarks...  B 
Bookmarks Folder 1   >
Bookmarks Folder 2   >
Bookmarks Folder n   > 
Toplevel Bookmark 1
Toplevel Bookmark 2 
Toplevel Bookmark 3
Toplevel Bookmark 4
Toplevel Bookmark 5
Toplevel Bookmark 6 
Toplevel Bookmark 7
Toplevel Bookmark 8
Toplevel Bookmark n		 The top section will allow adding the current page to the Bookmarks list as well as access to managing Bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar and overall
 
Location:
App-specific top level menus have to be inserted after the "Go" menu, but before the "Tasks" and "Help" menu

Kinds of menus to put there:
Similar to 4.5 these are for example the "Message" top level menu for Messenger, or the "Insert" and "Format" menus for Ender/Composer.

Tasks Menu

Tasks (Input: NC, JohnG) Structure Extensibility
Core Applications...
This sould include the 3 or 4 applications we name core level, and this section will not be changed for consistency reasons. When Navigator is selected when the user is in Navigator a new Nav window will be opened (similar to 4.x)

Other applications/service categories (submenus)...
This is an area where users can quickly gain access to non-core applications such as Qwest services. Similar to the taskbar the items accessible here will be grouped into meaningful categories as needed. This section is updatebale and extensible

Security...
This will provide general access to all things related to Security and may link to the "CartMan" interface as developed by the server Eng/UE folks.

Tools (submenu) (extensible)...
A set of special and usually highly technical tools that affect the overall C5 behavior. Examples include a "Plugin Info" dialog, as well as server tools, Java and JavaScript consoles and debuggers etc.

Go To Window >
This lets users quickly toggle between open window.
Location:
Below the core application section as well as inside the Tools section

Kinds of items to be put there:
See the taskbarspecification for groups of items that may appear here.

Also we need to include registration, member services and possibly NetWatch here.

Help Menu

Related: see help menu specs from the Info Design/Documentation Group
Help (Input: VeraH) Structure Extensibility
Contents >...
Index, posibly aggregated from both Netcenter and local sources through RDF

How-to >...
A tutorial that answers commonly asked questions

Help Channel...
This will point users to a Netcenter based help channel with a 'club like atmosphere' (original quote Netcenter folks), a Netscapers Anonymous so to speak, were there will be central and up-to-date help facility and users can exchange tips and tricks for using Netscape products

Other Misc Items...
This will include things like Updates, TechSupp and release notes for the specifc C5 release

About...
This is the standard page displaying the Communicator 'identity' page indicating the version and potentially other info about this release of C5
We should be really careful to keep the help menu as short as possible, in order to not decrease its effectiveness as evidenced in 4.5.(see help menu proposal for reasoning here)