I wanted to give you an update on what the work that the Nautilus hackers have been doing since the release of Nautilus 1.0. I'm happy to report that many of the top concerns raised by the GNOME community have already been addressed and are slated to be rolled out as part of the Nautilus 1.0.3 release that we hope to get out in late April or early May.
Darin Adler just posted an overview of the new features in 1.0.3 at
http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/cvsblame.cgi?file=nautilus/NEWS&rev=&root=/cvs/gnome
Here's the full list:
- don't allow desktop icons to be under the Panel
- cut, copy, and paste for moving or copying files (a la Windows)
- notice changes to files made outside Nautilus using the FAM ibrary
if it's present
- icon in title of Notes sidebar panel if the location has notes
- Scripts menu to make it easy to run selected scripts on any file;
a new way to extend Nautilus
- tree view is faster, and also doesn't run at all unless it's opened,
so it doesn't slow things down when you don't use it
- improved rubber-banding speed (in smooth mode)
- other small speed improvements
- Preferences menu now named "Preferences" instead of icon
- preference to turn emacs keybindings on (for location field in
the location bar, and elsewhere)
- improved preferences for font and font size
- global view preferences, including global default zoom level
- preference to always sort folders first
- preference to add a "Delete" command that bypasses the trash
- icon caption setting moved into Preferences dialog
- support for HTTP proxies that require a user name and password
- preference for maximum image size for thumbnailing (and upped default
from 1 MB to 3 MB)
- add "View as" items to menu bar
- put ellipses ("...") in the middle of file names, not the start (or
end)
- made copy progress dialog hang around for a second even if the copy
is faster than 1 second
- list menu emblem column has a title and is after the file name column
- select folder or file you came from when you do Up command
- sort tree view more like how we sort other views
- draw tree view icons smoothly when smooth mode is on
- less flicker in tree view display
- add a way to go to a specific location even when the location bar
is hidden that doubles as a way to set the keyboard focus to the location
in the location bar
- improved look of help on sidebar by using icons instead of using
slanted text
- new implementation of audio preview that is faster and better
- improved Open command, including a keyboard shortcut for the Open
in New Window command
- show target path in properties window for symlinks
- updated dragging code to use the same kind of slightly broken
URLs that gmc produces, which makes it compatible with programs that previously
worked with gmc and not Nautilus
- handle drags of URLs onto the desktop by making Nautilus links
- nautilus code broken out into librsvg, eel, and trilobite
Here's how we're doing on the top 5 feature requests we identified a few weeks ago, based on your feedback:
Tree view performance is much better, tree view doesn't slow down Nautilus when it's not running, rubberbanding is better and I believe there are several other performance improvements. We still have a lot of work to do in this department, but we're making headway.1. Speed! (includes .jpg thumbnailing performance)
Done.2. Ability to more easily move files around (using either cut/copy/paste or shelf idea)
Not done AFAIK. Sorry.3. View .tar, .rpm packages
Done. This is now a preference setting.4. Ability to delete files directly
We now have a Scripts menu to make it easy to run selected scripts on any file; a new way to extend Nautilus.5. Integrated shell features
Bart