Topaz circle menus

I think the good old "Start Menu/Apps Menu" has to change.

It would be great to easily access our favourite apps in an intuitive and user friendly way. Today we know what we will be capable of tomorrow using XGL or AIGLX.

Circle Menus could really be something great. The idea is simple :

- We keep a panel with different items which represent a menu (a group of actions, apps ...) maybe we can simply use a dock (MacOSX dockPanel)
- Click on one of them or use a keyboard shortcut ("Super + ???") for example "Computer" (see screenshots)
- The screen become dark, the mouse pointer dissapear and a circle containing different icons appears in the middle of the screen
- Use the mouse wheel to select your app and just press enter or click right (right because it's eaisier to click right than left when you use the wheel)

Just imagine how cool it would be with Zoom and transparency effets.

You can eventually navigate through circles by selecting an item that will lead you to another circle... Nevertheless I think this would take more time than the traditionnal menu. But if we want to browse every apps we have to do it, the key thing here is to organize the circles by priority (the main apps first and the other after) defining different levels.

We can define default circles, for example :
- My Favourite Apps (Gimp, Firefox ...) defined by the user.
- System (Logout, configure ...)
- Multimedia (DVD, Musique, Photo)
- Office
- Anything else defined by te user : (My dev tools, My games ...)

This new way of thinking can also lead to other ideas, for example we could be able to enter or select parameters on an item (see Search in screenshots) or anything else.

We can also mix this with mouse gestures.

I really think, this idea would be nice, intuitive and user-friendly. It would brings something fresh and I'd really like to see it.

Of course, it has to be polished.

What do you think?