Re: Another way to solve the Spatial vs. Navigational debate

[Iain * <iaingnome gmail com>]

> New users want simplicity and browser mode is not simple either.
>
> In fact, file management isn't. My wife doesn't do it. She seemingly
> doesn't care to clean up the desktop (==managing files) even though
> it's rapidly filling up from downloads etc.
>
> She is also constantly bitching about not having a decent way to
> navigate the images in our photo folder categorized as "date/time.jpg"
> and found the browser mode even worse at it than the spatial after I
> upgraded and the new ubuntu default had set in.
>
> Guess I need to adapt myself to the f-spot import so she can use that.
>
> Anyway, the point is that the new (and most of the old) users don't
> want to manage files, they just want to have places to look at stuff.
> The work done to achieve this is great, but lacking in premeditaded
> solutions (ie. "dumbing down" that would benefit the newbies and annoy
> Power Users(tm))
>
> /me hides from the flames

I'm constantly amazed at the people who seem to spend all their
computer time using the file manager, that even the most minor of
changes renders the program USELESS!!! because it adds one click, or
one extra pixel distance to some ESSENTIAL!!!! operation.

I hope the new applications that attempt to organise on content rather
than "generic files" and are better suited to the organisation of the
content will in the near future be far more important, and I wish that
all the time that is wasted debating this shit over and over again was
rather spent working out how best to integrate them into the desktop
so we eventually do away with generic file managers.

Sorry for not adding anything to this discussion, but seriously, it's
just a file manager.

iain the anti-file-manager