I had started this discussion on Telegram, I asked about the large amount of options in the menus and the redundancy of several of them, and it was suggested that I propose some solution . So I will list here my observations These changes will probably face some resistance, but it is important to emphasize that the intention here is not to make kate less functional. Organizing the interface will benefit all kinds of users and makes room for other cool features that can be added in the future. Also, since the introduction of the Kcommandbar it has become much easier to access these menus through it, which even makes it unnecessary to use the mouse. One small detail: many images kate is using the Portuguese language, and this can make the initial identification of the items I am referring to a bit confusing, but even so they are totally possible to identify. Sorry about that. So here we go. 1 - https://i.imgur.com/hZUMel1.png The option to display the terminal already exists at the bottom of the screen 2 - https://i.imgur.com/zLkbxeP.jpg Although they are similar options, changing the kate color scheme and the editor color scheme are in different places. Since the settings menu is "freer", I think the option to select the editor color theme could be moved there 3 - https://i.imgur.com/W6AzPHN.png The search and replace plugin is one of the best functions of kate, it almost completely replaces the other search functions. And since it is already in the bottom bar, you don't need to create any specific menu for it. Maybe it is necessary to fix the bug 439413 before removing these options 4 - https://i.imgur.com/XXOJrQX.png This option is useless because the terminal is automatically synchronized with the current document; the user does not need to access the menu for this. 5 - https://i.imgur.com/27WIJq2.png This is certainly the biggest removal I suggest here. The 'File' menu currently has the biggest options, and the ones I've highlighted are most easily accessed through the file tab. It is a more intuitive and dynamic place, as you don't have to switch tabs and then go to the FIle menu again, you just go straight to the tab. 6 - https://i.imgur.com/GGhXOcd.png Border settings already exist in the settings menu And since this is a setting that the user usually changes very little, it doesn't make sense to add it to this menu 7 - https://i.imgur.com/MaSAFej.png The 'Show path in titlebar' and 'Configure languague' options could be moved to the main menu, since they probably aren't accessed as often as the other options next to them. **Things that are already in the status bar** 8 - https://i.imgur.com/1uDquDE.png In the status bar you can already change the size and mode of the indentation, as well as the width of the Tab. For the indentation, perhaps even more efficiently, because you can choose by specific number, rather than a subjective option. 9 - https://i.imgur.com/6lpmA32.png Spell check options are also already in the status bar. In addition they open an interface at the bottom of the screen that I didn't know of its existence and I believe many people didn't either 😂 10 - https://i.imgur.com/xs2fDPh.png Encoding is also already in the status bar 11 - https://i.imgur.com/Q8KY9CC.png The 'Mode' and 'highlighting' are also already in the status bar 12 - https://i.imgur.com/aswFHp7.png There is a button in the status bar that displays the active writing mode, such as VI Mode, Insert, Normal, Read Only, but it does not allow the selection of these modes, it only displays the one that is currently active. If it did allow this selection (as the others beside it do), it would be possible to remove these three menus that are highlighted in the image. 13 - https://i.imgur.com/8hwtNIU.png These options seem to be rarely used or enabled/disabled only once, and are already in the main menu. 14 The last change I would like to suggest is the opposite of these removals: there is no mention in the kate interface about the Kcommandbar. Then it could be added to the 'View' menu. It is an amazing tool that should certainly be highlighted more . I believe that these changes will also help kate not to lose usability when khamburguermenu is implemented. Since removing these various options from the menus will help to not create a big chain of menus and submenus piling up and making navigation with the mouse a maze (like this https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f925446209682c6c49f5fd907764b0f057bc3728641af3aebdb1391802456e0a.png). I hope this is helpful in some way. Thanks!
Hi, thanks for the proposal. You refer to "main menu" sometimes, e.g. the settings page and that menu entries are duplicated between that and the menu. There is a big difference between the menu entries and setting page stuff: the menu entry will toggle it just for one document/view. And for some things, like end-of-line or byte order mark, that is important. We can't remove this from the menu just because it is in the settings page, as then there is no way to set it just for one document. For removing stuff that is duplicated between status bar and menu: the question there is for me: 1) how to access that with keyboard only navigation 2) one will need to ensure it stays in the HUD
> And for some things, like end-of-line or byte order mark, that is important. We can't remove this from the menu just because it is in the settings page, as then there is no way to set it just for one document. I get it > 2) one will need to ensure it stays in the HUD yes, I was thinking about that too while writing. I'm not a developer so I don't know what to suggest for the technical side of this.
Another menu that is missed: LSP imo, it is completely pointless to have it in the context menu as well as in the main menu. It should be completely removed from the main menu. Besides for other points, I agree that Menu entries for Search and show terminal are pointless. The have keyboard shortcuts + already are sitting in the status bar. Should be removed. To keep stuff in the HUD, one can keep the actions in action collection but not have them in the menus.
another result of the current state of these repeated options: https://i.imgur.com/Ew6kmDF.png
In general the menu bar is expected to show everything, even redundant things that are already visible via toolbar buttons, context menus, buttons in open toolviews, and so on. This is one of the problems that KHamburgerMenu was designed to address (see Bug 439894) but I worry that Kate simply has too many actions for it. I think at a certain point we need to reorganize existing menu items to put more of them into sub-menus, and also probably be brutal and remove some silly pointless features, like the toggle to show or hide code folding markers. :)
putting things in submenus is nice, but when it's inside KHamburgerMenu, the end result isn't good. That's why I put the dolphin menu image
Lots of cleaning was done recently, I think we can close this for now.