`open-menu-symbolic` should be three lines or three dots instead of a gear

[flodavid]

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)

[danirabbit]

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

[flodavid]

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.