Rethink Toolbars/Menu bar organization

[Splitwirez]

Currently, Jaya's Toolbar and Menu bar look like this:

For comparison, Windows XP's File Explorer's Toolbar and Menu bar look like this:

In Windows XP's case, the most frequently-invoked commands are placed onto Toolbars, while the Menu bar houses everything, so the user can access less-frequently-invoked commands there. Additionally, the Menu bar and Navigation controls (back/forward buttons, address/search bars, etc) are housed in the Toolbars as well, rather than being separate portions of the GUI.

In their current form, Jaya's Toolbars miss the point entirely, instead opting to shove pretty much every command into both the Toolbar and the Menu bar. This can and will overwhelm less experienced users. Additionally, Jaya has the Menu bar and Navigation controls completely separated from the Toolbars.

I think we should be taking cues from Windows XP here, as Microsoft in 2000 - 2001 had more resources to research this than we do today, and their approach has long since proven itself a success.

[waliarubal]

What I am thinking is that we can keep the address bar (navigation bar) as is and put more used commands as you are suggesting. As MS is doing, but the fact being what all ribbon has to offer is many more commands than the toolbar XP had. What to you think @Splitwirez ?

[Splitwirez]

What I am thinking is that we can keep the address bar (navigation bar) as is and put more used commands as you are suggesting.

I mean...I guess we could do that sort of, but doing so would prevent our current GUI from being able to properly mimick Windows XP's, which I think would be a major loss - I know it may seem strange to want to imitate that, but I've seen that there is definitely a market for such a thing. Is there a reason why you wanted to keep the navigation bar as-is? If so, I'd like to hear what it is before we make a decision on the matter.

As MS is doing, but the fact being what all ribbon has to offer is many more commands than the toolbar XP had. What to you think @Splitwirez ?

Well...we'll have to find a reasonable way to organize those into the Menu bar, presumably. Though Windows XP did have the option for the user to modify which commands were visible on the Toolbars, so we should probably follow their example there as well - after all, different people have different usage habits, and this would allow the user to adjust the Toolbars to fit their unique needs.

[waliarubal]

I would say we should take ideas from XP's UI but not mimic it completely. We should keep things modern. Regarding allowing users to customize the UI commands is something which should be present for ribbon also, not just toolbars.