Re: Nautilus 2.6 - We're going all spatial

["Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)" <amadorm usm edu ec>]

> I don't believe its going to be anywhere near a majority (I would expect
> it to be substantially less than 10%) if you're looking at using GNOME
> as any sort of corporate desktop. Furthermore, I believe there's very
> strong overlap between people who prefer navigation mode and people who
> don't and won't use Nautilus to a significant extent anyway, preferring
> the terminal.

Me included.  I either use Konqueror with "Open folders in new windows"
activated, or the terminal, or navigate through the folder hierarchy with konq
then press CTRL+T.  Nautilus lacks CTRL+T.

(i'm starting to feel the heat of the flames)

What bothers me is that neither nautilus nor konqueror let you operate in
spatial mode fully.  If I press Backspace on either of them, regardless of the
"open in new window" setting, the parent folder opens in the same window, and
this fucks up all the windows I have open, because now I have the same folder
open twice.  To get to a parent folder without losing the current view, I have
to alt+tab!

I hate it when I lose the current folder view, and none of the file browsers let
me Backspace into a new window (actually, what should happen is that the already
opened parent window should come to the foreground).  I also hate it when I lose
the current icon view, whatever the reasons for it (try to find files in
Nautilus ,Konqueror or Windows XP and you'll understand).  But at least konq
lets me alleviate that by CTRL+Duplicating the window first.  Sorry to let you
in on this, but the File find in Windows 95/98/Me is the best to me.  It neatly
opens in a new window, allowing me to continue working on the old one without
doing anything besides ALT+Tab.

I guess this boils down to telling the user a) "This is nautilus, it lets you
view and navigate through the files on your computer" or b) "Double click the
Home icon on your screen, that opens your personal folder".

I'd take the second (b) one any day.  Do users really need to learn what a
"Nautilus" is, or what is "navigating files"?  Or should we prefer that the user
model begins with the thought of "this window IS my home folder", rather than 
"represents".  The file viewer indirection makes it harder for the users.

We indeed know that the icon for a folder is just a visual representation. 
Regular users don't.  They KNOW that the icon IS the folder.  If double-clicking
an icon opens a new window, the user will infer that double clicking a folder
should open a new window as well, a window which they will call "A folder", not
"A folder window".  Subtle but crucial distinction.



    suerte,

    Rudd-O

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