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One of my favorite features of KDE is the ability to hide the menu in certain applications (Dolphin, Konqueror, Gwenview, Kopete, etc). However, this option seems to be up to the whim of each application to implement. Is it possible to implement a global setting in which Ctrl-M hides and unhides the menu? This spares each developer from having to implement it into their application.

For those concerned about new users hiding the menu by accident, there can be the traditional popup saying "You have hidden the menu, press Ctrl-M to unhide it again" with the standard "Do not show me again" checkbox.

Menus are a great way to store a large amount of features, but they are only needed for a fraction of the time a person spends interacting with an application, and during the rest of the time they use unnecessary pixels/add clutter to the screen. Those applications that currently use Ctrl-M to hide menus offer an unobtrusive solution.

Wishlist request at bugs.kde.org: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168070

Why not just implent the feature but leave e the shortcut key empty? Then you can not accidentally hide the menu and show somekind pop-up what would just bring clutter to UI.

Place the option to system settings what would enable the global setting and then you could see it on menu settings > hide menu.

Then those who do not need the function or could accidentally press it without knowing how to get it back, could not hide the menu. And those who want and love the feature (like me), could enable it easily for all applications.

The usability really needs this kind feature on multiple applications like Amarok2 and Kontact(Kmail).
The KMail is very nice lookin Email application but the menu just brings more problems for normal use where user just use buttons on toolbar and never the menu. Even Dragonplayer would need this function because it is very simple player and it takes space with the menu what does not include even features what user would need. Who needs hiding the toolbar, but leaving menu shown so you can not even pause/play the video?

The problem with global actions not assigned to standard shortcuts is that application developers tend to reuse these shortcuts without noticing the collision. Instead, I'd rather assign a global shortcut and display a message when the menubar is hidden (with the well-known "Do not show this message again" check box).

What about a button on the title bar that toggles the menu's visability. I personally don't like the global hot-key idea as it can be hard to discover. It should be *easy* for a user to work out how to get the menu back. I remember my father stressing *a lot* about loosing the menu on internet explorer... and I think you only needed too press Alt in that case. He thought something had been seriously broken...

andre_orwell wrote:What about a button on the title bar that toggles the menu's visability. I personally don't like the global hot-key idea as it can be hard to discover. It should be *easy* for a user to work out how to get the menu back. I remember my father stressing *a lot* about loosing the menu on internet explorer... and I think you only needed too press Alt in that case. He thought something had been seriously broken...

My dear old mother had this problem too. Windows Vista hides the menus in just about all its applications, including the Explorer window. What, did Microsoft think the menu's too complicated and therefore a power-user's tool? ??_??

I made a patch to have this option available using the "alt" key. I prefer that and I you really want the feature, just apply the patch!
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=76641&p=123013#p123013

It is not perfect, the right solution would be to use ctrl+alt+m, but this is better than nothing.

i second andre_orwells suggestion to put a button into the title bar, although i think this button should only be visible when the menu is hidden. Otherwise the tilebar gets too full.
It is very important that there is a visible feedback when the menu bar is hidden. Otherwise it will happen that users hide the menubar in a seldom used program (i.e. kmix can ctrl+m) and forget about it. Four weeks later people will wonder where to setup the mixer.

crabman