Re: [Nautilus-list] Nautilus Smoke Test --- first draft, feedback Request.

[David Bishop <david bishop dhs org>]

I will admit that one of my pet peeves using Windows is not knowing at any 
given time what left-click drag will do (copy/link/move) and that leads me 
into using right-click drag almost exclusively, which shouldn't be true.  So, 
I understand exactly what you are talking about :-)  However, I will still 
hold forth that linking to the desktop is the more "natural" or "better" 
alternative, but will not whine excessively if I don't get my way :-)

d.a.bishop

>Hi David, thanks for speaking up.

>Note (which you may have already realized) that we're not talking about
>whether something is possible or not, but only about the default behavior
>you get from a drag. You can always right-button-drag to be presented with
>the choice of move/copy/create-link.

>I think you're right that one of the most common cases on the desktop is
>links to commonly-launched applications. I think another common case is
>documents that the user wants to temporarily store in an "obvious" place for
>easy access. In the app case, drag-to-create-link is the handiest default,
>whereas in the document case, drag-to-move is the handiest.

>But note that "handiest" here is not necessarily best. If we make dragging
>to the desktop use a different default than dragging elsewhere, we've
>introduced an invisible difference that some users are bound to stumble
>over. People will make mistakes because they expect the drag to behave as it
>does elsewhere but it will behave differently.

>So it's a tradeoff (like everything). The tradeoff is between "handiest
>behavior" and "most consistent behavior". Tradeoffs like this where the pros
>& cons are along different dimensions are very hard to judge.

>John

>on 9/5/00 11:24 AM, David Bishop at david bishop dhs org wrote:

>> I feel strongly about it :-)  The most common use for dragging stuff to 
the
>> desktop (in my experience) is to have a short cut for commonly used 
>programs,
>> ie netscrape, eterm, gnapster, et al.  It is extereemly rare for me to
>> actually want to *move* something to my desktop (I think it's obvious why 
I
>> don't want to move eterm or netscape).  In fact, the only thing that I can
>> imagine wanting to actually reside on my desktop would be documents, which 
>I
>> have a seperate folder for anyways.  Please feel free to flame me if I'm
>> missing something obvious :-)
>> 
>> d.a.bishop
>> 
>>> on 9/2/00 3:35 PM, Eli Goldberg at eli eazel com wrote:
>> 
>>>> Hi!
>>>> 
>>>> I've temporarily posted a first draft of Nautilus Smoke Tests to
>>>> <http://www.prometheus-music.com/eazel/smoketests.html>, and would
>>>> appreciate any suggested additions or removals before posting (and
>>>> using).
>>>> 
>>>> The goal is to have a set of test cases that a person can execute in
>>>> 10-15 minutes or less, which will flag obvious regressions quickly, and
>>>> indicate whether a build is suitable for further testing.
>> 
>>> Hi Eli,
>> 
>>> Your first draft is a great start to this kind of thing.
>> 
>>> Nitpick: For many of the tasks, you start with "double-click <whatever>".
>>> Note that unless you've changed the default preference, it only takes a
>>> single click to activate.
>> 
>>> D-2: You ask whether dragging a file to the desktop should move it or 
make 
>a
>>> link (you actually used the Mac term "alias", but you meant the Unix term
>>> "symbolic link" or just "link"). My preference would be for the desktop 
to
>>> act like any other destination, so a link would not be created by 
default.
>>> I'm not sure what the current behavior is. And somebody could probably 
>talk
>>> me out of this if they felt strongly about it.
>> 
>>> P-2: Whether the icon view draws a hyper-link-like underline under the 
>icon
>>> text is a function of the single-click vs. double-click preference.
>>> Currently, by default, all three user levels use single-click. So the
>>> underline should appear in all three user levels unless you've changed 
the
>>> preference to double-click-to-activate.
>> 
>>> There are dozens of other tests that you *could* use in such a smoke-test
>>> scenario, but nothing pops to mind as being particularly missing or extra
>>> from your list. It seems like a good starting point to me.
>> 
>>> John
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Nautilus-list mailing list
>>> Nautilus-list lists eazel com
>>> http://www.eazel.com/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list
>> 



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