In case the image isn't clear: The location of the three-dots menu in the blue bar implies that it is subordinate to the Applications container in the information hierarchy of the page, when it is not.

It is common practice to put the user menu bar in the top right of the screen, especially when following the material design spec - see google docs or gmail as examples. Moving the menu would deviate from what a user would likely expect and would have seen in other similar applications.

Another solution to the problem could be to better separate the user menu from the contextual action buttons, similar to how kube dashboard does it here. What do you think @mogul?

I'd agree that this does appear a bit muddled together, we should do a better job of differentiating the two areas.

@KlapTrap The kube dashboard has the user menu in the white global navbar at the top, so it's clear that the menu has nothing to do with what is under Overview in the hierarchy of "stuff on the page".
If the kube dashboard included the user menu icon in the blue Overview bar, I'd have filed a similar issue with them. :) The equivalent of kube's global white navbar in Stratos is that black area to the left, which is why I suggested moving the user menu there.

Also IIRC the "three-dots" menu in material design connotes "there're more actions available on this thing than we felt warranted (or could fit) icons in this space; touch here for the overflow". Given the placement, we would expect that the overflow content would be "more actions related to Applications. So in addition to moving the menu, I'd make the icon something more like what kube uses for making it clear it's stuff related to the user, rather than three-dots.

Looked it up just to be sure... Here is the doc about the three-dots menu being for actions overflow (search for Action items and overflow menu (optional) and see the animation under Nesting Actions > Action Positioning).

I was aware that the docs that the three dots are often used for overflow actions, but we were at a bit of a loss as to which other icon to use that didn't just look like another action, or didn't clash with an icon we already used. The three dots are often synonyms with "there is a menu under this button" so we stuck with that but I completely understand the confusion it causes.

Considering everything here I think we should:

1. Ensure there is an obvious split between contextual actions and the "user menu"
   Possibly a subtle vertical line?

2. Use an more appropriate icon.
   Maybe follow the google pattern of the first letter of the username in a circle? As seen here in chrome

Does that sound good @mogul ?

I still feel like that resulting "person" icon+menu belongs higher in the page/div hierarchy so it's not "within" [Apps|Marketplace|Services|CloudFoundry].

However, what you're suggesting would be an incremental improvement, so go for it!