Re: [Nautilus-list] I tried the demo of Nautilus.. [LONG]

["Blad, John Erling" <john erling blad aftenposten no>]

>> usr00002 don't work either..

> I'm not sure what any of the above means. Are these user IDs for Eazel
> Services, or are you creating users on your Linux box for Nautilus testing
> purposes?

It is the users at your demo site, http://www.eazel.com/ and go for "Try a
demo"
or go to http://magritte.eazel.com/workspotdemo/workspotdemosmall.html

>> 1) Emblems are not internatinal
>> A pencil with a stopsign?
>> A stopsign with a pencil?
>> To me that is.. Hmm,.. No write? I got it on some catalogue where
>> I can write. Or..?

> I'm not sure that this is really an internationalization problem. I think
> the emblems just might not be clear enough. It would be great if you could
> report a bug at Bugzilla.eazel.com specifying which emblems were not clear
> to you.

Just some examples; a star could very well be taken for a political
statement,
Ok and Dk will be very similar (Dk is a short hand notation of Denmark).

I'm not sure but perhaps it is better to make text emblems? I freaked a bit
on this because I've been through the same discussion several times. For
example
at http://www.ssb.no/english/ there are a lot of icons at the top of the
page.
Without the tool-tips, can you gess what they are?

>> 2) Opens a property dialog box
>> - ops.. it dissapeard.. oh, it's behind the main window..
>> I can change the group! no I can't.. I gess I'm speciel somehow
>> and only belongs to a single group.. Why can I change the group then?
>> Three different views of the same permissions? If this was simpler
>> it could go in the basic group.

> The permissions are the standard unix permissions. We'd like to come up
with
> some simpler UI than just showing all the standard unix permissions
someday,
> but we didn't do that for the first release. In any case, at least expert
> users will always need to be able to access & change all the standard unix
> permissions.

There are three different presentations of the file permissions. Two of them
are only interessting if I'm in a terminal and then they are easy to get.
Text and number versions in the lower part of the dialog is out of context.
That is, I can't use them and the information is already available.

>> So I can set a custom icon? How do I remove them system wide?
>> I don't remember very long what I use for different files. (Stupid me)

> There is no feature currently to seek out and delete all custom icons. I
> haven't heard anyone ask for such a feature before. If you think this
would
> be useful, please enter a bug about it at bugzilla.eazel.com.

The idea is, why do I want to change an icon? Because there are something
special with it. If so is this only local or does it happens other places
to?
And if I have done a more or less global change, how do I change it back? 
This can for example happen if I work with other people in a work group.
I wouldn't even know which files they have tagged as beloning to the
"Antzilla Project".

This also leads to some kind of idea about a global scripting engine for
emblems
ala MIME types file. If I can put emblems on a file according to the group
then
this problem would be a lot simpler, but it would not be the same problem..

>> The buttons at the bottom of the window, they look like dialog buttons
>> but they are not. In fact, I tried to change the name of one icon
>> and pushing the buttons afterwards..
>> I even was looking for "Apply" in the "Emblems" group but then realized
>> something had already happen.

> I'm not sure what you mean here. It's true that the properties window is
> modeless and that all changes take place right away.

>> 3) Closes the dialog box.. Closes.. Kills the window through the window
>> manager.

> I'm not sure what you mean here. Closing the window by clicking the close
> box didn't work for some reason?

It was the computer icon. He, he.. I know it is grey.. My point is you see
something that looks like something you've seen before and act on it without
thinking.

In the emblems group there are no buttons. That's okey but there are no
"Close"
button either. At least not in the demo version. It is the same in
"Permissions".
I have no idea if it is okey to close the window with the window manager.
But
if so you define an accepted behaviour that is not common.

I know I don't do this unless the application fails to respond. Perhaps
there
should be a "Close" button there because what happens if Nautilus has to run
in an environment without a window close button? I can imagine at least one
site
who will remove the close (kill) button from the window manager.

>> 4) Tries "Help" in the left pane.. Fails with an error about web view..
>> I was accessing a man page through help and got a web error?
>> Hopefully this is a local server?

> This is some sort of problem with the Mozilla component. The help pages
are
> indeed local. Maybe some Mozilla expert (I'm not one) could help you
figure
> out why it didn't work for you, if you could supply more information (what
> version of Nautilus, what platform, how did you install Mozilla...)

Well, just log into eazels demo and get the information..
Mozilla 0.7.. Linux 2.2.14.. Well, you get it all there!

>> Tries another one, or AnotherClock. That fails too..

> I'm not sure what you mean here.

AnotherClock is an application with some pages. You will find it under
"Applications".

>> 5) Why the help tree.. It looks lik it has something in common with
history..
>> Opens the history and double clicks desktop (This killed Nautilus in
usr00008)
>> The tree don't open but the desktop goes on top in the list and the
desktop
>> is shown in the right pane. The history is a list but the help is a
tree..
>> Something in the back of my head says this is opposite of what it used to
be.
>> Perhaps it is just me that asossiates help with lists.

>We recently fixed a bug where the desktop would appear in the History list,
>so that problem is gone. I'm not sure why you think history should be a
>tree, or help a flat list. Can you explain this more?

That explains why Nautilus died.

Now I can't explain why. I supposed the help was some kind of list. Perhaps
I'm
just used to the behaviour in MS Win help.. Several browsers uses a history
thingy
that shows up as a tree.. I like list for history and I like it attached to
the
"Back" toolbar button.

Help an tree presentations would be much like subjects at Statistics Norway.
There a large subject tree holds all statistics. When someone tries to
navigate
this tree he/she gets into trouble if he/she don't use the same words to
describe
the various subjects as they do. When I was there we find that the only
viable
solution was to use synonyms and cross-links in the tree, turning it into an
graph,
to overcome the problems. Later we added a search facility to direct the
user to
the right place. You will find that facility on the norwegian pages on the
site
http://www.ssb.no/

This search engine uses several techniques to search the web, including
rewriteing
the words and even replacing them with synonyms. Sometimes not even synonyms
but
other words we found through analyzing the wais logs.

I belive a user gets into the same kind of trouble with any predefined help
tree or
graph. He or she will use words to describe a problem that simply isn't in
the tree.
Without any sort of search facility he/she is on her own. (Of course it is
possible
to use Medusa)

>> 6) Notes should be simple! I allways takes notes. I pile them up on my
desktop
>> (the real one) until they fall off. I write a test note. And zapping
around.
>> IF ANYONE FINDS A NOTE ABOUT UGLY LOOKING GIRLS PLEASE DELETE IT!!

>I'm not sure what your point is. Did something bad happen to your note? Was
>it hard to write into a note?

Some years back I worked on systems with "notes" built into it. It was
extremly
stressing to figure out when and why someone would write a note. For example
one could write notes about
	o Mails
	o Documents
	o Persons
	o Accidents
	o Fuel
	o Lunches
	o Girlfriends
	o Directories
	o Appointments
	o ...

You could say that a note is a written message that should appear given a
predicate
that evaluates to true. 

In Nautilus I got the idea that I could write a note that was attached to a
directory.
I got this idea because this was how I experienced the system behaviour. My
note
reappeard when I was on the same location in the directory structure. This
is just
one kind of note. An extremly simple one to. Ever written a note on someones
car?

>> 7) Made a file with touch and tried to trash it. Dragged it to trash but
it
>> don't work..

> We've fixed various problems recently with items not appearing in the
Trash.
> Please try again with the latest build if you get a chance.

Nautilus 0.8, Pre 3..

>> "Move to Trash" between "Properties" and "Duplicate"? Well, I can always
find
>> it in the trash if I misses I gess..

> That's an interesting point; I suppose "Move to Trash" could be more
> isolated from less destructive menu items. Of course, like you say, it
> doesn't actually do anything destructive (assuming you can find the item
in
> the Trash afterwards!).

>> Hmm, my trashcan is empty..

> Hopefully fixed now.

Just my rambling but.. Even if I drag a file into the trashcan without a
name
it should be visible with some kind of default name.
 
>> 8) Icon captions. Sounds cool. Why don't anything happen? Oh, I have to
zoom.

> By default, at the default zoom level (100%), there are two pieces of
> information under each icon (name & size). So if you change "size" to
> something else in the first menu in the Icon Captions dialog, you will see
> an immediate change. It's true that changes to the other menus won't be
> reflected at the default zoom level. That's why the explanatory text is
> there. I agree that there's probably a way to change the design here to
make
> it clearer.

It should be possible to select some items then use the magnifying glass to
enlarge the selected items. Of course if you have a mouce with those funny
wheels
you could use them.. I just have an ol mice.. With tail that snags all my
notes
all the times.

>> How?
>> Forgot to add something? Gee I can zoom the icons in the toolbar! That
is, I'm
>> on /home/users and I lost my home folder.. So I change to list view.

> I'm not sure what you mean here.

Zooming all icons in a directory very quickly fill up the window.

>> 9) What's that in the menu bar? Nothing changes.. Okey, I'm a beginner I
>> belive..

> I'm not sure what you mean here.

Right. I'm not sure what it is either. But it seems to be something about
skill level.

>> But there is the preferences! I think the demo is a bit slow so I want to
>> speed it up. Speed trade offs.. There is nothing there.. Perhaps there
are
>> some other prefs somewhere?

> It's a bug that empty categories appeared in the preferences dialog. We've
> fixed that now.

One app I made did something like this. It was extremly confusing to the
users.
That is dialogs with beginner levels an expert levels. The reason was
(I gesses a bit) that there was no hint about what was missing.

I've seen dialogs with a "More..." button. That seems to work much better
because
it hints that something is missing. Perhaps if there was such buttons in the
dialogs for beginner and intermediate levels?

Also, will any menu change because of beginner-intermediate-expert settings?
It takes very long time to remap how you move in the menus.

>> 10) Find sounds cool. I used that one a lot to find files on this
computer! ;)
>> If I pushes "Find" I got one gui, if I pushes "Web search" I get
something
>> else..

> Maybe someday we will integrate searching the web with searching the local
> file system, though they are extremely different operations of course.

Imagine a toolbar text field with a drop-down list with
File-Web-Help-whatever.
You choose a "protocol", that is the item from the drop-down list, and
writes
some text string into the text field. The "protocol" spins up a script and
that
script decides the settings.

+---------+--------------------+
| File: v | <Query goes here>  |
+---------+--------------------+

You could at least have script for
	o File (exact nameing or globs in default dir)
	o Find (exact nameing or globs globally)
	o Locate (regexp globally)
	o Lycos (Let Lycos handle this query)
	o Alltheweb (Let alltheweb handle this query)
	o Medusa (let medusa search locally)
	o ...

>> If no one is selected I get a third..

> I'm not sure what you mean here.

You get one interface with "Web search" another one with "Find" a third one
when
no-one is selected. (Local files/dirs)

>> In find there are globs..? What the heck
>> is that? I give up.. Perl has something called globs, do you expect
users,
>> even experienced ones to program a find operation in Perl?

> "globs" are expressions like *.c and the like. I agree that the term is
> horribly nerdly and unlikely to be understood by most people. The
> functionality is pretty useful though.

You know what it is, I know what it is.. Today I bumped into an 83 years old
grandpa who was buying a PC..

>> 11) With a web search I can choose what kind of browser I want to use.
Gee..
>> Just a thought, I want to look at a web page, I'm not really interested
>> in what browser I can use at this point. Perhaps I want to set it as a
>> preference.

> Nautilus offers up a list of external applications that can be used to
open
> the currently-viewed location. It's not specific to web pages -- try
viewing
> a text file in Nautilus and you'll see the same kind of thing. Which
> applications are on this list, and which behavior you get by default, is
> configurable by each user. Try the "Open with..." button in the sidebar
and
> set the defaults the way you'd like them.

Perhaps a good idea..

Some files can be opened with many applications. What do you do then?
Perhaps
this list could be managed by automatic means? Don't know.. The user will
assume
that the list will change so this could be allowed..

>> Netscape generated a ton of errors.. Oki, killed it.. Can't set which
browser
>> I want to use but I can try to use gedit. Suprise, it failed.

> Nautilus used to show applications that were registered to work for the
> displayed type of file, even if they didn't work for remote files and the
> displayed file was remote. This has since been changed, and those choices
> won't appear.

Oki.. KDE have some libs that do this by downloading the file first. Could
this
be done by Nautilus?

>> At this point I got a message about my demo was about to die.

> Wow, I didn't know we could predict that in advance!  : )

Works on the demo site.. Chops the connection!

>> Now, someone would say I'm to harsh about Nautilus but this is what I
have
>> done for
>> several years. If I can't find a ton of errors for each window then I
haven't
>> looked hard enough. This is just a short list, I could go on and on.

> I know what you mean. I can find seemingly endless problems with every
> piece of software I study. It's sometimes fun, and sometimes annoying,
> depending on what mood I'm in.

Oki.

John Blad