Re: Gnome 2.6: What were you thinking?

[jamie <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 14:21, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 07:55, jamie wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 09:42, Carlos Garnacho wrote:
> 
> > > because middle clicking is a PITA in laptops :-)
> > 
> > My only gripe with the spatial mode is why doesn't the default left
> > click open stuff in the same window instead of popping up a new one? I
> 
> Because then it wouldn't be spatial mode!  Please read one of the
> bazillion writeups around on what spatial mode is, how it works, and why
> it works that way.  Here's the Ars Technica articles I'd recommend
> readinig:

Thanks. I do understand the theory of spatial mode and its simplicity.
In practice however the raw spatial view does have problems with clutter
and despite the hostile review by Petreley there are legitimate
criticisms about this.

I do like spatial mode for file management and it works great. The only
snag is when you have to drill down many folders to get where you want
and unless you know about using the shift key then things will quickly
become messy for novice users.

My request for changing default behaviour is based on this and also that
from a usability point of view the most commonly used stuff should be
based on the left click.

> 
> Spatial Finder:
> http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-3.html#spatial-finder
> GNOME/Nautilus 2.6:
> http://arstechnica.com/reviews/004/software/gnome-2.6/gnome-2.6-2.html
> 
> 
> > I would like to see Nautilus behave in a similar way to tabbed browsers
> 
> How the heck do you drag-n-drop then?  Tabs also destroy spatiality. 

Separate tabs are no different to separate windows from a spatial point
of view - the theory still holds.

> Generally the only reason to have two working windows at a time (not
> including parent windows) is to see/work in both at once, so tabs become
> useless.

But Gedit does it nicely. You can drag a tab out to form a new window
and then drag n drop text selections between them. My proposal is to use
this feature to get the best of both worlds (spatial and browser) whilst
minimising the clutter.

jamie.