[Nautilus-list] [long] Comments/reactions to PR2

[Adam Haile <adam haile duke edu>]

I just got PR2 compiled and running on my RedHat 7 laptop, and have been
keeping a log of thoughts and reactions.  Overall, I'm really
impressed.  Many thanks to the Eazel team for their hard work!  I've
been using Linux since 95.  You get so used to clumsy and ugly
interfaces, that it's a real breath of fresh air to see one that's well
designed.

I've arbitrarily divided my comments into "proposals" and "tweaks"
depending on the scope of the suggestion.  Since I just joined the list,
my apologies if some of these have been discussed or rejected in the
past.  Of course, you can just completely ignore all this, if you so
choose.  You asked for feedback, so here it is :).

Note: Some of these thoughts reflect the concerns of a laptop user:
limited screen real estate, and a clumsy pointing device.  I'm probably
a little more irked by wasted space than less pixelly challenged users. 
In my perfect world, Nautilus would work well in 1/4 of my 1024x768
screen, since my usual work environment is a tall text editor in the
right half of my screen, a file manager in the top left quarter, and a
shell in the bottom left quarter.  GMC works moderately well for me
right now at this size.

Here goes ...
---

Proposal: Replace the "Open with" buttons in the sidebar with
application icons in an "Open with" frame

I think clicking a button to launch an application is counterintuitive
for a user.  Generally, the metaphor is that you click an *icon* to
launch an application, not a button.  Plus, I find the repeated "Open
with" in the buttons to be visually cluttering.  What if we instead used
an "Open with"  frame of application icons.  Here's a (bad) ASCII
drawing of the proposed sidebar.  Imagine that the squares of #'s are
icons, set your mail reader to a fixed-width font, and hallucinate just
a little to see this:

       ######
       ######
       ######        <-- Nautilus' current icon w/ description
       ######
       Foo.txt
  plain text, 4.9K
       11/6/00
			
    _Open with___    <-- the "Open with" frame
   | ####   #### |
   | ####   #### |   <-+ icons of application options
   | ####   #### |     |
   | gedit  pico |     |
   | ####   #### |     |
   | ####   #### |   <-'
   | ####   #### |
   | NEdit XEmacs|
   |_____[Other]_|   <-- button to select "Other" application


Proposal: Put the Find function in the sidebar, rather than the tool and
location bars 

I was a little startled the first time I selected the Find button and
saw the location bar grow into a Find interface.  Is the location bar
really the right place for this function?  Instead of a Find button in
the toolbar, I would prefer a Find tab in the sidebar; instead of the
interface replacing the location bar, it would be the contents of the
tab's panel.

Another bad ASCII drawing:

 ______
| Find \____________________
|                           |
| [ Name v ] [ Contains v ] |  <- criteria fields, split
|     [foo______________]   |     across two lines
| [ Type v ] [ is v]        |
|     [ text file     v ]   |
|                           |
|                           |
| [ More ] [ Less ]         |  <- More/less/find buttons, split
|           [ Find Them ! ] |     into different lines to distinguish
| _______ ______ _________  |     their functionality
|| Notes \ Tree \ History \_|


In my mind, putting Find in the sidebar is conceptually cleaner for
several reasons:

- The other buttons in the toolbar are *action* buttons: 
  click them to do something.  Find, however, is a *modal* 
  button: click it to display or hide the Find interface.  
  This is exactly the function of the tabs in the sidebar: 
  click them to display or hide an interface.  

- The sidebar seems to me to be the right place for 
  special-purpose interfaces, like Find, Help, and Tree, 
  not the location bar.

- Find is more of a navigational *aid*, like Tree and Help, 
  than a navigational *action*, like Back or Home.
	  

Proposal: Experiment with a combined location and tool bar

This is probably a bit controversial, but I'd like to put it out there
for people to think about.  I'm quite taken by the way Mozilla's new
Modern theme combines the location bar with the tool bar.  I'd like to
see a combined location and tool bar available as an option in Nautilus,
at least for intermediate and advanced users.  One of my general
criticisms, not just with Nautilus but with a number of recent
applications, is that the control interface has grown so extensive that
there's barely any room left for the content area.  After you allocate
space for the menu bar, the tool bar, the location bar, the status bar,
and the sidebar, the actual contents of the directory are crowded into a
small window.  Combining the location and tool bar would free up a
substantial portion of screen space and works quite well, IMHO, for
Mozilla.  

What makes a combined bar more difficult for Nautilus is the need to fit
more stuff into the bar.  Nautilus needs 2 more buttons than Mozilla (up
and home), plus the magnification widget and the "view as" dropdown. 
The text labels would probably have to be dropped, since they take up so
much room. 

While ASCII does even worse on this drawing than the others, here's
something to at least give you the idea.  I've provided descriptions
below the bar:

< > ^ & X A | [/home/user/foo/bar/   ] ? | -[100]+ [Icons v]

^             ^                        ^    ^      ^
|             |                        |    |      |
|             `- location              |    |      `- "View as" dropdown
`- back, fwd, up, reload, stop, home   |    `- Magnification
                                       `- search button

Notice a couple things: I've taken the phrase "View as" out of the
pulldown in order to save space (I'm assuming novice and intermediate
users would understand without it).  Also, I've put the web search
button after the location line.  This ties into one of the tweaks I've
suggested below: letting users type web search keywords into the
location field. 

---
The remaining items are smaller in scope, so I've called them "tweaks".
---

Tweak: add drop-down lists to back, forward, and up arrows

I think this one has been suggested before.  I'd like to see these
buttons have small arrows with drop-down lists attatched to them, like
most current web browsers.  Personally, I prefer the behaviour of the
old Netscape to the new Mozilla on this one.  In Netscape you clicked
and held the button to display the list.  Mozilla now has very small and
hard to hit down arrows that you have to click exactly to see the list. 
Note that this would basically make the current History tab obsolete.

Tweak: let users type web search keywords into the location field

I'm not sure how this would play with novice users, but another of
Mozilla's features that I've really come to appreciate is the ability to
type search keywords into the location field and click a search button
to the field's right.  If you have a slow net connection, it saves you
the 10 seconds of waiting for the initial search page to load.

Tweak: lessen the nesting indent in the Tree panel

Right now, items in the tree view are nested pretty deeply from their
parent.  As a result, you can't get more than three or four levels deep
without having to scroll horizontally (ugh).  Given that you usually
start two levels deep in your home directory, that's not very far at
all.  The indent should be about half what it is now, which is still
enough to make the heirarchy visually obvious.  I like the amount of
indent that GMC uses, for example.

Tweak: text labels on toolbar icons should follow GNOME settings

In the User Interface/Applications panel of the GNOME control center,
there is an option to globally turn on or off text labels in tool bars. 
Right now, Nautilus ignores this and always displays text labels (or at
least I couldn't figure out how to turn them off).  I assume that, in
the final version, Nautilus will follow the GNOME defaults.

Tweak: if you're going to list files and directories in the Tree panel,
at least list directories first

Personally, I'm on the side of those who prefer only directories in the
Tree, but if you decide to include both, list the directories first.  I
generally use the Tree to jump around the filesystem quickly.  Right
now, I need to scroll vertically so much to get to the next directory I
want that it's very slow.

Tweak: make image thumbnails and file icons of equal size

On my system, image thumbnails are about 80% larger than the other icons
when in the "view as icons" mode.  They're about the same when viewed as
a list.  (I just noticed there's an old bug, #1017, that describes this
issue.)

Tweak: put less white space between icons, or make it adjustable

This is another of my small-screen concerns.  Right now, there's quite a
bit of white space around icons.  Could this be either diminished or
made adjustable?

Tweak: add a down arrow to lower the currently raised tab in the sidebar

When a tab at the bottom of the panel is clicked and raised, it would be
nice if a small down arrow were displayed in the place the tab used to
occupy.  This arrow would allow the user to raise and lower the tab by
clicking in the same spot.  Right now, you need to click the tab on the
bottom to raise it, move your pointer to the top, and then click the
raised tab to lower it.  For laptop users like myself, with slow
touch-pad pointing devices, the extra motion can be bothersome.

Tweak: add an arrow to expand or contract the sidebar

It would be nice if there were a small arrow either on or near the
sidebar divider which, when clicked, would close or open it back up. 
Right now, you have to grab the grip on the divider and drag it back and
forth.  Mozilla's "Modern" theme has one example of how it could be
done.

Again, thanks for Nautilus!
-- Adam

-- 
Adam Haile                                         _,--_
PhD Student / Duke University                   _,~   {`
adam haile duke edu                      __.,--~       ~_
________________....,,,,,,---------~~~~~`               
~-,,,..._________