Re: Nautilus 2.6 - We're going all spatial

[Arik Devens <arik danieltiger com>]

On Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 01:34  pm, Mario Vukelic wrote:
Rather then have a tree view applet, which seems like it would probably 
just confuse new users, it might make more sense to have a Mac OS style 
tree view in the spatial window.

What Mac OS called the "list view" was actually just a tree that showed 
files and folders. Hunt down a screenshot of the Mac OS 9 Finder to see 
what I mean, it worked really well.

You could switch any spatial window to be a "list view" and the whole 
filesystem appeared in tree view with files and folders, if you single 
clicked on the arrow next to a closed folder in the tree, it expanded 
and the arrow pointed downward. If a folder was expanded in the tree 
and you double-clicked on it, the folder opened in a new window and 
collapsed in the tree view.

Something like that would be a very good thing to have, and might deal 
with a lot of the objections people are having to the spatial design.

Arik


> On Mit, 2003-09-17 at 13:27, Julien Olivier wrote:
>
> > I agree. And I think it would be very useful to have a tree view in a
> > always-accessible place like the panel and/or the context menu.
>
> I think having a tree view available from a panel applet in addition to
> a purely spatial nautilus is an idea worth considering. There once was 
> s
> fs tree panel applet for Gnome 1.4 IIRC, but at the moment I can't find
> it on Google. Basically, it was a panel applet that dropped down a fs
> tree view if you clicked on it. I don't think it was very tied in with
> nautilus, which IIRC was it's major weakness
>
> A tree panel applet that makes sense in the context of a spatial
> nautilus should have the following properties:
>
> * Hierarchies can be either explicitly included or excluded (design
> decision or preference, I have no idea). Even if the user wants to be
> able to browse the fs, he does not always need to see everything under 
> a
> parent, but only some parts
> * Several tree roots can be specified. Can be either done by combining
> them in one applet, or by defining one root per applet, in which case
> the user can add more than one applet to the panel to be able to staret
> the browsing from several locations (/, /usr, /usr/local, /etc, /var,
> /home)
> * Probably only folders shall be shown in the tree, maybe files as an
> option (but that would make the tree very long, making it unwieldy)
> * Clicking a folder in the tree view opens a "normal" spatial nautilus
> window
> * The applet should tie in very much with nautilus, or rather be really
> a part of it, functionally. E.g., it may be convenient to have a means
> to return to the folder in the tree view (i.e., opening the tree again
> at the folder location) if some action is triggered in the spatial
> nautilus window. This action should probably only be even available in
> the nautilus window when the applet is running. Mouse gestures come to
> mind (only half joking)
> * As the whole thing is targeted to power users, it can/should be very
> configurable
>
> Such a thing would enable nautilus to be completely spatial without any
> compromises and still provide a tree view. The tree view would be taken
> out of the single nautilus windows, thus using less screen space than a
> side pane in every window that is in browser mode. It would enforce a
> very strong conceptual border between nautilus in spatial mode and
> nautilus in browser mode, but it would keep strong functional
> relationship . It may even extend some advantages of the spatial model
> to browsing, since the tree will always be in the same location of the
> desktop: motor memory
>
> Is this very stupid?
>
>
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