Re: GNOME Usability Improvements - Fix the window manager!

[Sean Murphy <murphy erim-int com>]

Even though I'm a long-time Mac user, I'd have to agree with James in that it
isn't logical at all to drag a disk to the trash to eject.  It would make more
sense if performing that operation would bring up a dialog window asking if
you wish to reformat the disk and give you options as to what type of file
system you would like to format it with (FAT32, HFS, EXT2, etc).  Is anyone
attempting to make this happen?  I think it would be a pretty useful feature,
although maybe I'm alone on this.

I would like to see gnome go the way of Mac as far as auto-mounting disks.  I
love the fact that when you put a disk in on the Mac, an icon pops up on the
desktop and the icon can be clicked on and used.  If there is no disk in the
drive, there isn't an icon on the desktop.  When I started using Windows, I
couldn't believe how stupid the computer was!  It had no idea whether the disk
was installed or not, and file system browser is constantly displaying the
floppy and CD-ROM drives even when there is no disk in them.  What good does
it do to have an icon of a drive that has no disk in it?


"James M. Cape" wrote:

> Michael Stearne wrote:
> >
> > Thomas Hedler wrote:
> > >
> > > On 06-Aug-99 Ben Frantzdale wrote:
> > > > One other anoying thing is that you can't eject the CD with the
> > > > button on
> > > > the CDROM. and you can't eject the floppy with the physical eject
> > > > button
> > > > withought unmounting it first else the computer complians :-)
> > > > --Ben
> > >
> > > Where is the problem? If Windows accesses the CDROM and you open the
> > > eject button, you would get a blue screen. If you press <ESC> or
> > > <retry> it sometimes crashes completely. Do you really want this? ;-)
> > >
> > > Only because windows has this behaviour it needn't to be a good
> > > behaviour!!!
> > >
> > > The users have to learn some things. If they don't want to learn
> > > something they should use windows or better buy a Mac.
> >
> > How will Linux ever be a desktop platform with this thinking?
> >
> > Users shouldn't HAVE to learn things, they should have the option of
> > learning things if they want to.  You can avoid the the blue screen, by
> > locking the eject button on a CD drive like Macs do.  Mounting and
> > unmounting of media is done right on the Mac, why can't this method just
> > be used in Linux?  Have a "Trash" Can on the Desktop and drag the CD
> > there to unmount it. There is no reason to re-invent the wheel if there
> > is a suitable solution out there. Just because a method is used by
> > another OS besides Linux doesn't mean it is wrong.
> >
> > Michael Stearne
>
> Just because it's on a Mac doesn't mean it's right.
>
> You drag things to the Trash Can to Delete them, and the Trash can is
> the single-most used example of flaws in the Mac's UI. I'm not going to
> copy it (or suggest we copy it) just because some bizzare Mac users are
> used to deleting their floppies to eject them.
>
> (Me personally, I would logically expect that dragging a disk (whether
> it's hard, floppy, networked, or CD) icon onto a Trash Can would at the
> very least delete everything on the disk, and more likely reformat it.)
>
>     Jim Cape
>     http://www.jcinteractive.com
>
>     "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them
>      pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
>         -- Winston Churchill
>
> --
>         FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions at http://www.gnome.org/gnomefaq
>          To unsubscribe: mail gnome-list-request@gnome.org with
>                        "unsubscribe" as the Subject.