elementary
`open-menu-symbolic` should be three lines or three dots instead of a gear
What Happened?
The gear for open-menu-symbolic (also used as application-menu-symbolic) is misleading, as it express settings instead of an actions menu.
For example for Flatseal, on Gnome, the menu icon looks like this:
when in Elementary, it looks like that:
This page describes why Gnome changed from using a gear icon to the three lines icon: https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)GnomeGoals(2f)GearIcons.html. I think Elementary should apply the same logic.
Other Desktop environments use a three dots icon. view-more-symbolic () could also be used as
open-menu-symbolic.
Steps to Reproduce
Launch a GTK app using open-menu-symbolic icon, like Flatseal, ~Warehouse~ or Main Menu.
Expected Behavior
The open-menu-symbolic icon should express that it contains actions, not settings. To this effect, an "hamburger" style icon would be better than a "gear" one.
OS Version
8.x (Circe)
OS Architecture
amd64
Session Type
Classic Session (X11, This is the default)
Software Version
Latest release (I have run all updates)
I definitely don't want to conflat 'open-menu' and 'view-more'. 'open-menu' should be used for menubuttons that are the "main" menu associated with the main menu shortcut, whereas "view-more" can be any number of menubuttons and not necessarily the main menu. I think our usage here is consistent with the idea that the gear icon should be used for the main menu which contains app settings
I've also read other studies that showed the hamburger metaphor specifically is heavily associated with navigation, so I'm not totally convinced that it's a better metaphor.
I'll leave this open for further discussion, but one thing I'm sure of is we shouldn't conflate view-more with open-menu
Thank you for the quick answer. I agree that using view-more would not be a good solution.
I will try to add more context for why I think the icon should be changed, with some examples below.
First category
Those where the gear, generally meaning settings, totally makes sense.
Resources:
Flatseal:
Mission Center:
Pin It!:
Pipeline:
Second category
Apps that contain actions using an open-menu button.
Authenticator:
Main Menu:
(Gnome) Disks:
Byte (which uses Granite):
Even (Elementary) Code, where the search actions feel weird in this "gear" menu:
Third category
There, actions kinda feel like settings too.
Warehouse, which forces the burger menu ("Open files" is used to import, so can be seen as a setting):
dconfEditor:
I don't know if its the GTK apps that use the icon too loosely, but there are many examples where the gear icon is not as intuitive as an hamburger icon would be to me. And I think that's why Gnome moved from using a gear in the first place.
Indeed the hamburger icon is often used for navigation, but I think it's only when it is all the way to the top left of the application/page, which those applications avoid doing.
I don't know if you have seen my answer @danirabbit , sorry for the ping otherwise
@flodavid thanks for your detailed response. I think I'm personally still not convinced that the presence of actions in the main menu means the gear icon is a bad metaphor. This is a metaphor we've used for 15 years and I'm really hesitant to consider changing it to a much more abstract metaphor.
I'll still leave this open for others to comment and discuss and maybe we can look at what metaphors are used for main menus on other platforms.