Re: [Usability]Re: Tabs for Nautilus ?

[Steve Tyler <styler mimiburns com>]

Although I agree that the cost/benefit of implementing tabs in Nautilus may not be the most effective, my point was more that "in an ideal world", from a usability standpoint, it's my belief that the majority of apps should have the same navigational features in order to increase the ease of using Gnome (it is a collection of components that make up and environment, is it not?).  

Of course, we're not in an ideal world so it may well cost too much to implement tabs in nautilus but I think the general goal should still stand; that if I can get to my information using a specific method in one app, I should be able to do the same in other apps if I'm performing a similar task such as reading documents.

The "should be addressed by the window manager" point of view, is not entirely clear to me.  Comparing/reading/viewing two or three documents (aka web pages) in a tabbed web browser feels natural to me and seems to be an acceptable functional design.  If I'm essentially doing the same thing with plain text (or abiword, gnumeric, etc) documents in nautilus, how is the task any different to warrant that it should be addressed by the window manager?  As a user sat in front of a computer, I'm not doing anything different?

'Twould be a pleasure to feel enlightened.

Steve

On Tue, 2002-05-21 at 21:03, Dave Bordoley wrote:
> Have to agree with havoc, if it gets to the point where every app must
> have tabs for consistency well than this has become a new window manager
> issue. Tabbing is a nice feature in apps where it makes sense, and is
> really helpful. I'm just not sure nautilus is an app where the
> cost/benefit of tabs really justifies them (This is coming from someone
> who filed one of the enhancement requests for the feature in nautilus)
>
> dave 
>
> On Tue, 2002-05-21 at 17:41, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > Steve Tyler <styler mimiburns com> writes:
> > > One could argue that for consistency, Nautilus should have tabbed
> > > capability simply because Galeon, Gnome-Terminal, Gedit, etc all have
> > > it.  If I can view tabbed web pages in galeon and I browse (using
> > > nautilus) to a directory containing documents, I am already familiar
> > > with the concept of 'right-click/open in a new tab' in order to view a
> > > document and my first reaction would be to do the same thing.  I think
> > > these are the kind of UI consistency issues that really matter, that as
> > > a user, I can learn how to use gnome not how to use Nautilus, Galeon,
> > > Evolution, Gnucash, Gnumeric, Abiword....hopefully you get my point.
> > > 
> > > I'd love to backup my opinion with code, but I haven't made it all the
> > > way through my 'C Primer' book yet, but I'm working on it ;-)
> > > 
> > > [I've cc'd usability gnome org cos this is a usabilty issue...hope
> > > nobody minds]
> > > 
> > 
> > There's perhaps some truth to the viewpoint that tabs are a workaround
> > for inadequate window manager integration/functionality... just a
> > thought.
> > 
> > Havoc
>