Bug 157937

Summary:	Add action to hide menubar
Product:	[Unmaintained] kmail	Reporter:	Fri13 <friiduh>
Component:	GUI	Assignee:	kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED WAITINGFORINFO
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	finex, luigi.toscano
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Mandriva RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Fri13 2008-02-16 19:16:37 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 3.5.8)
Installed from:    Mandriva RPMs

Old users often dont use menubar at all in Kmail. They only need few buttons what are needed for basic email using.

New(write)
 Get emails
 Reply
 Forward
 (some likes “next unread”)
 Move to trash
 Print

And menubar can add all kind problems, because when they click it mistaken etc. 
File > quit is not needed because they close application from X (corner), like all other applications, many dont even know they can go “file > quit” because X is always there for them.

I still get questions how to remove menu bar by users who are over 60 years old.

This is current view of most of my (old age) customers
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/6127/kmailwithmenutj3.jpg

How i would like to configure kmail for them, is the Ctrl+M option what would give this option: http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5728/kmailwithoutmenujk0.jpg

It does not look “so important” from normal user but it would be great help for old users who dont need menu but what is always possible to get when they ask support on phone/email. 

And then it would be easy to tell “press ctrl button and M together, then you can see up a menu bar, select…”

Konqueror even have toolbar button “Show Menubar” what could be added so it’s not needed to press ctrl+M combination, this is important for few users who has problems to locate ctrl or press two buttons same time (one of my customer has a parkinson so he forgets things easily, especially combinations).

I suggest that ctrl+M option is brought back to Kmail, but by default shortcut would not be enabled for that, so menu bar would not get hided by mistaken, but for those who need option to hide menubar (because usability), can hide it.

And this is just feedback what i have got from old users.

Comment 1 Ingo Klöcker 2008-02-17 11:45:28 UTC

I understand where you are coming from. Still, even if there is no shortcut people can still hide the menubar by mistake via the "Hide menubar" entry in the Settings menu and then cannot bring it back because they do not know about Ctrl+M. The action to hide the menubar was removed from KMail for exactly this reason. (Unfortunately, I've not been able to find the corresponding bug.)

Since you do not simply want to hide the menubar but also want to have the possibility to show it if necessary, adding a non-GUI config option for hiding the menubar is not an option.

Therefore I propose the following solution:
We re-add the show/hide menubar action to KMail, but we neither assign a shortcut to it nor do we make it available in the menu. Then you can enable the option for your users by editting the global kmmainwin.rc or by putting an editted version of the kmmainwin.rc into your users ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail.

Note that this comment is just meant as hint for a possible implementor. It should not be read as "Consider it done."

Comment 2 Fri13 2008-07-16 10:36:48 UTC

Is there someone planned to implent this yet? I just checked the Kmail on KDE 4.1 beta2 and it is wierd that you can hide easily the toolbar where the "new", "get", "reply" and "delete" buttons are, but you cant hide the menu so you would only have these toolbars where the main actions are ;-)

Comment 3 Fri13 2009-01-11 14:34:08 UTC

There is currently a "fix" available. It is to use Bespin theme for KDE4 and it brings a Xbar -plasmoid what can be added to own toolbar to top. It does same thing as Apple has on their UI and KMail becames much simple and easier to use when there is no toolbar. Still... not real fix but can be avoided the original problem but only when using one specific theme.

Still it would be good to have disabled (by default) shortcut in shortcut option where user could add Ctrl+M to hide menu, without other changed to UI.

Comment 4 FiNeX 2009-08-09 10:17:52 UTC

An alternative could be having #168070 implemented

Comment 5 FiNeX 2009-08-09 10:33:04 UTC

An alternative could be having bug #168070 implemented

Comment 6 Fri13 2010-09-04 10:09:47 UTC

This is now done partically. As there is now since KDE SC 4.5 to choose what toolbar buttons have text and what does not. Now only KDElibs should have the feature to global menu hiding function. 

KMail really needs this feature as it makes it easy to use and learn when you get only needed functions. Same thing applies to Amarok 2.2.3 and many other applications.

Comment 7 Myriam Schweingruber 2012-08-18 08:56:35 UTC

Thank you for your feature request. Kmail1 is currently unmaintained so we are closing all wishes. Please feel free to reopen a feature request for Kmail2 if it has not already been implemented.
Thank you for your understanding.

Comment 8 Luigi Toscano 2012-08-19 00:22:38 UTC

Instead of creating a new feature request, please confirm here if the wishlist is still valid for kmail2.