Menu

I know there are a gazillion ideas out there about how the main menu should look.

I hope you can stand one more.

My concept while not complete, deals with ease of use and mouse/keyboard interaction.

In my opinion one of the easiest interfaces is that of my cell phone, why do I say easy?, because once used a few times I can easily navigate through the screens usually without looking at them.

After the initial click on the central big icon (distro customized) the menu expands to reveal a larger panel where the icons are laid out in a 9x9 grid arrangement to correspond to the number pad keys.

This way you can dial right to you desired application.

As an example in the included image, you would click the menu icon, then sequentially type 5,1 to start kaffine.

Also this design also allows you to find an application by searching first without navigating through the full menu.

As another example suppose you don't know the name of your application but you know the function.

In the search box you\'d type dv.. and as you type the menu would sort through all the programs that are associated with "dv" and give you choices.

There is a navigation button that allows you to go back ala kickoff style that is hopefully more obvious.

Also displayed is an icon for contextual help.

The control panel at the side operates in the same manner as other plasmoids.

The configuration icon would bring up a separate app that would allow you to customize the panel layouts.

Again not all of the details have been worked out so if you recognize a design flaw please communicate it.

Added note

Clearified description, will be adding aditional screenshots.

Updated screenshot with more consistant theme.

Added alternative default menu indicating locked and unlocked atates