Re: Template system

[Bill Garrett <garrett memesis org>]

> >  The
> > document-centric way seems the reverse of this, i.e. "Let me find a
> > location in which I will create a file, which will contain a letter
> > which I will write."
> No studies =(  that I know of.  Supposedly back in '94, Microsoft
> invested millions and determined this was the way to go, hence the
> New... menu and the Templates directory, while hiding the applications
> on a Start submenu.

This is purely anecdotal.  There are some situations where I'd rather open an
application and just start banging out data, but there are others where I'd
like the option to say, for example, 'start working on a new text file in the
currently-open window'.  For example, as a writer, I find myself relying a
great deal on "scrapbooks" of pre-written text, and often I want to create a
new file in a certain directory, which may be several layers removed from my
home directory.  I already have a Nautilus window open in this location.

Templates aren't the only solution to this problem.  I may as well
drag-and-drop from the application's "Save" button into a currently open
window, and get an "untitled 1"-type file which I can then rename.  Another
nice compromise would be for the GTK+/GNOME save dialog to list the currently
open Nautilus windows as directories the user could quickly jump to.  That'd
fix my problem, at least, but I'm not sure what all cases templates are found
to be useful in.