Re: Gnome 2.6: What were you thinking?

["John (J5) Palmieri" <johnp redhat com>]

On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 09:38, jamie wrote:
> 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.

Shortcuts and multi-root are great.  The world is moving away from
inefficient deep hierarchies. Plus having windows open at the same size
and position one closes them at makes resources much easier to find. 
You can't do this in browser mode.  For those who wish older behavior
there is a gconf key and I believe some hackers have expressed interest
at making it more visible with some UI.

> 
> 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.

You are assuming your most commonly used stuff.  For those who differ
(can't please everyone all the time) the default behavior can be changed
(but one can try). 

> > 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.

They are hugely different.  Spacial is not just about one window per
folder.  It is about size and position which tabs can't give you.

> > 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.

It is another code path to maintain but if someone is willing to do the
work and other find it useful...

> jamie.
> 
> 
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-- 
John (J5) Palmieri
Associate Software Engineer
Desktop Group
Red Hat, Inc.
Blog: http://martianrock.com