Re: [Usability] Drive applet by default

["Saad Shakhshir" <shakhshir gmail com>]

What I believe the OP is trying to say is not that we should be mounting drives manually, but that some form of notification should pop up informing the user of the newly inserted removable device.  It should also be the place where the user goes in order to properly remove (unmount) said device.

Many times you have other windows open when you insert a removable device and an inexperienced user will not know that the device has now appeared on his/her desktop because the desktop is covered.  There should be a globally visible area where users are notified of the insertion of removable devices and that same area should be used as a place where the user can unmount and properly remove the inserted device.

I do not think that this should be a separate applet.  I believe it makes more sense to have it be part of the notification area and to create a tray icon for removable devices.  There could be a straightforward drop down menu that lists all removable devices that are currently plugged in and a user should be able to remove (unmount) any such devices from the icon.

-SS-

On 9/14/06, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:

Please discuss on one list at a time to avoid confusing crosstalk which
can make things very difficult to follow.

Please do not crosspost.

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006, David Prieto wrote:

> Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:44:42 +0200
> From: David Prieto <frandavid100 gmail com>
> To: usability gnome org, desktop-devel-list gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Drive applet by default
>
> I've noticed that some people coming from windows have trouble removing
> USB devices and the like, because they don't quite know what to do to
> "safely remove the device".

Makes sure you are finished transferring and then unplug the damned thing.
It should be that simple.

The system Windows provides really sucks, and I largely ignore.  Sucks
rocks, through a hosepipe.  I would hope Apple have a system that doesn't
suck quite so much.

The problem is that if I was the kind of user who didn't know files were
still copying to the removable drive I would potentially lose data.

There is an underlying problem which needs to be solved.  If a write to a
removable drive is interuppted users should be warned and preferably given
the chance to plug back in the device and resume the transfer.  This is no
different for a pendrive or a network drive halfway across the internet
and might require some complicated caching in the background.

The drive mount applet shouldn't even come into it.  If we must manually
mount drives it should be made clear this is a crappy limitation of
current technology.  Having used other systems, it feels like a giant step
backwards to have manually mount drives and suffer such a convoluted eject
process.

--
Alan H.

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