ssborbis
"Sidebar Menu" highly confusing (terminology)
ContextSearch 1.47.15 offers several menus. 3 of them are similar: the Quick Menu, the Toolbar Menu and the so-called "Sidebar Menu", which is somewhat documented in the README. Despite the references to that "Sidebar Menu" in ContextSearch Options’ fifth tab and in the README, it took me more than 1 person-hour to find that menu and up to 4 person-hours to fully grasp it.
The combination of numerous factors makes references to "Sidebar Menu" extremely confusing:
- The "Sidebar Menu" does not necessarily display in a sidebar.
- ContextSearch has many types of menus.
- By default, the "Sidebar Menu" does not display as a sidebar, but rather as a floating menu very similar to the Toolbar Menu.
- In French (at least), the "Sidebar Menu" is effectively called just the "Sidebar" (bug #797).
- Options → Sidebar Menu gives no clue about what the "Sidebar Menu" is.
- Help does not cover that menu.
- Even the README provides no screenshot/screencast of that menu, and its description is poor. It does not list all the ways in which the menu can be opened.
- To my knowledge, there is no way to open that menu by default.
- At least Firefox has its own, distinct sidebar.
- ContextSearch itself uses that sidebar (to display query results).
"Sidebar Menu" is a misnomer, since that menu is either anchored ("docked") to a side of the viewport (as a sidebar) or floating. A better name might be "Positioned Menu" or "Sticky Menu".
The README currently contains:
Yet another version of the quick menu. Think of this as a quick menu that always stays put.
Like the Toolbar menu, this gets its own column setting. Unlike the quick menu, it can be dragged around by the menu bar and docked to the left or right of the screen. Double-click the menu bar to dock, and you'll get a full viewheight menu the width of the undocked menu. Why? Why not.
"that always stays put" contradicts the next paragraph ("can be dragged around by the menu bar and docked to the left or right of the screen").
There are multiple ways to clarify the situation. I recommend:
- Reviewing the terminology, or else documenting it much better.
- Rephrasing "Like the Toolbar menu, this gets its own column setting." as "Like the Toolbar menu, this one has its own setting for the number of columns." and moving to the Options subsection.
- Rewriting "Yet another version of the quick menu. Think of this as a quick menu that always stays put." as "This menu’s content is similar to the Quick Menu’s, but the Sidebar Menu is designed to be displayed constantly."
- To avoid "the menu bar", since that bar does not have any menu, and it's strange to discuss a menu’s menu bar. "the title bar" might work, but since the menu has no title either, "Double-click the top bar" might be best.
