Re: Request: Test suite for EFS.

[Darin Fisher <dfisher jagger me berkeley edu>]

Let me just say in advance that I think EFS is the way to go.

What if the user happens to use some other graphic-shell-tool
besides Nautilus?  What if they decide, for example, to use KDE as
their desktop environment but still want to run Gnumeric?  Or,
let's try a even more likely example.  Suppose the user is running
Netscape and wishes to attach a Gnumeric document to an email.  Netscape
(as
far as I know) doesn't know how to attach a directory.

While there are strong arguments for using a directory as a document,
I just don't see it as a sufficient solution.  No matter what, most
users would agree: a document _is_ a file.  Without totally dumbing
down the system, you can't make a directory a file.  Some app somewhere
will not understand and that will make the user unhappy.

>From the user point of view, I do not think it is unintuitive to
have an extra set of utilities (read: graphical utilites) that
allow you to access the contents of an EFS file.  Most users won't
need to do this; only the "expert" users will.  And, they will be
more likely to grasp the concept of the EFS file format.

Anyways, I've been listening to the discussions flying back-and-forth
on this topic, and I hope what I've said makes sense to people.  As
far as I'm concerned calling a directory a file is only going to
cause problems for the user.

Darin



>From: bob@thestuff.net
>To: u07ih@abdn.ac.uk
>CC: Ian McKellar <yakk-gnome-list@yakk.net.au>, norman@arcady.u-net.com,
>     gnome-list@gnome.org, recipient list not shown: ;
>Subject: Re: Request: Test suite for EFS.
>Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:26:30 -0600 (CST)
>
>I still think that a "newbie (who just wants to have a document)" would
>not be useing the command line to do his/her copying. They would be useing
>gmc or nautilus. The guru's would be the only ones to be doing that
>command line copying, and they could grasp the concept. Most windows users
>never touch DOS, so why do you think the newbie gnome users would touch
>the console?
>
>On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 u07ih@abdn.ac.uk wrote:
>
> > > Yes, but users don't care about files they care about documents. If
>you
> > > educate them that "cp -R" copies whole documents and "cp" copies
>individual
> > > components of those documents they'll be happy.
> >
> > I tihnk the blurring of document/directory is getting too much here.
>Eventually
> > people are going to think of directories as documents, and it's going to
>get
> > silly.
> > > > GNOME_VFS_ERROR_READONLYFS
> > > >
> > > > :)
> > >
> > > chmod a-w myfile.doc/*
> >
> > Yet another "confusing" looking command for a newbie (who just wants to
>have a
> > document) to understand.
> >
> > > PS: I think we've established the fact that we disagree on this one.
>There's
> > > not much point arguing anymore :-)
> >
> > yeah, pretty much.
> > iain
> >
> >
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