Re: "Browse folder" as open (double click) action?

[Toralf Lund <toralf procaptura com>]

Tom Wesley wrote:

> On Sat, 2004-07-03 at 17:32 +0200, Toralf Lund wrote:
>  
>
> > Tom Wesley wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > You may be interested to know that if you either hold the shift key and
> > > double click with the left mouse button, or use the middle mouse button
> > > to double-click you will only keep one window open.
> > >
> > >
> > >      
> > Ah, yes. I didn't know that, although I suspected that there would be 
> > such an option. One problem with this, though: It won't keep the same 
> > window, but open a new one *at a new location* and close the old. Farily 
> > annoying if you ask me; I'm getting dizzy by it all. But perhaps this 
> > one might be filed as a bug?
> >
> >    
>
> No, it is most certainly not a bug, but is the intended operation.  The
> rough theory is this.  In the real world a cardboard folder containing a
> set of photos will have certain physical properties, ie it may be blue
> and just over A4 in size.  The whole theory of spatial nautilus extends
> this to directories, so that directory or "folder" called Photos will,
> for example, have a blue background, be 400x320 pixels in size at
> position 100,20 until it is moved or altered.
>  
>
> In my opinion it does offer great consistency in some ways, but
> certainly looks strange to people who have used browser style
> navigation.
My main objection to it is that it really only works for a rather 
limited number of directories, i.e. it's primarily useful if you work on 
5-10 folders at the most (or I guess psychologists might tell you that 
the magic number is 7), or if there at least is a limited number of 
folders that you work on more than anything else. Personally, I tend to 
roam around a lot on several large filesystems, and for that, I find 
that GNOME so far has been a lot better than other GUIs. So I get a bit 
sceptical when I see a change in behaviour that may seem to take the 
functionality closer to e.g. MS Windows. I guess I worry that some 
people are trying to make GNOME more popular or "user friendlier" by 
taking away its strengths and/or what sets it apart from the 
competitors. (Personally, I think we can get  people to use GNOME only 
by offering something that's different from MS Windows - not by giving 
them something that's exactly like Windows, only open-source.)

As for the "middle-click"/"shift-click" behaviour, it all depends on how 
you define it's operation. The current version may be described as 
"Replace this view with the view of another folder", while it might mean 
"Display contents of another folder in this folder's view"  - which I 
think would be just as logical in many situations, and wouldn't really 
break the philosophy of it all.

>  When I first saw the spatial mode I also hated it, switched
> it off, but then go curious about what it was about.  Since then I've
> grown to like it and find browsing the file system much less logical.
>
>