Re: Proposal: gnome-user-share

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

> > > $HOME should not be used for "implementation detail" files, with the
> > > exception of dotfiles. Only user-should-care files. But ~/Public should
> > > contain user-should-care files, so it makes sense in a $HOME non-
> > > dotfile.
> > 
> > How is the fact that files can only be shared from the ~/Public
> > directory *not* an implementation detail? That's like saying that the
> > fact that xchat (used to, iirc) download to ~/dcc is fine, because the
> > user cares about the contents of ~/dcc.
> 
> Very good example, and example of very annoying behaviour too. It took
> me good 10 minutes to find where the file landed first time I used DCC
> with xchat, and it was so short only because I accidentally stumbled
> upon (then empty) ~/dcc few days earlier, which I eventually remembered.
> ~/Public has exactly the same problems as ~/Templates, where people
> learning about that functionality are all "Cool, but how was I supposed
> to know about that?", plus its own issue of keeping shared files in sync
> with master copies. This is clearly inferior to ease of what Windows and
> (AFAIK) Mac do, where you simply mark the folder as "shared" to make it
> shared. Let's not take design that has obvious inherent problems, when
> what we really need is solution to "it's not clear what's the full set
> of folders shared by user" problem. Correct way to solve it is to come
> up with good UI for managing shares (and permissions in general), not to
> introduce arbitrary and non-obvious limitations in design.
> 

Well returning to the previous thread about having a standard set of
folders on the desktop, would it not make sense to include a "Shared
Files" folder among them (I believe we mentioned having things like
Documents,Pictures,Downloads etc as standard folders with their
respective paths defined in GConf so that it can be internationalised
and clean Desktops like Ubuntu could have those folders in Home whilst
other distro's have them in ~/Desktop etc).

Having the ability to make shareable other folders is of course a nice
feature to have but having a universal shared folder which requires no
config is important for novice users who might not know how to share
other folders. And surely having the folder named "Shared Files" makes
its function pretty obvious to most users too.

jamie.


> Cheers,
> Maciej
>