[Nautilus-list] Top 21 Nautilus Feature Requests

[Bart Decrem <bart eazel com>]

Hi everyone,

Here's my cut at the Top 21 Feature Requests for Nautilus:

1.  Speed! (includes .jpg thumbnailing performance)
2.  Ability to more easily move files around (using either
cut/copy/paste or shelf idea)
3.  View .tar, .rpm packages
4.  Ability to delete files directly
5.  Integrated shell features
6.  Better browser functionality (inc. Download functionality, Mozilla
related problems etc.)
7.  A no-frills, lean and mean file manager (no Mozilla, no services)
8.  Better MIME type support
9.  Clean quit
10.  Elegant way to drop app launcher icons on the desktop
11.  Better keyboard navigation
12.  Bootstrap installer better recovery after failures
13.  Sort directories before individual files
14.  Text on desktop more readable
15.  Stability
16.  More previews (HTML, pdf)
17.  Automount floppies
18.  SMB support
19.  Root password popup box
20.  TLC to Tree View and List View (easy Rename in List View, for
example)
21.  Virtual folders not just as bookmarks

Here's how I came up with this list:
- Read through the flamage on Gnotices and compiled those stats (URLs
below)
- Read through the features requests on Gimme and compiled the stats
(URLs below)
- Factored in Eli's list based on feedback on IRC (copied below)
- Factored in Taska's list based on support mail feedback (copied
below).

Then applied my judgement, such as it is, to blend it all together in a
non-scientific blend of quantification and qualification.

Let me know if you'd like me to clarify any of these.  I'd highly
recommend checking out some of the postings on Gimm eazel com on
particular, they're very constructive.

Cheers,

Bart

URLs
----
- https://intra.eazel.com/~bart/feedback.html - a summary of the
feedback on Gnotices;
- https://intra.eazel.com/~bart/feedback2.html - a summary of the
suggestions from Gnome-Hackers.
- http://lists.eazel.com/pipermail/gimme/  - emails with suggestions
from 20-odd Gnome Hackers.  Mostly constructive in tone;
- http://news.gnome.org/gnome-news/984666201/index_html - lots of
flamage about Nautilus 1.0;
- http://news.gnome.org/gnome-news/984644591/index_html - more Nautilus
1.0 flamage.


TASKA'S MAIL
------------
Hi All,

Here is a report on the common recent feature requests for Nautilus.
They are semi-sorted with 'popularity' numbers on the front.  Here is a
guide:

1. everyone and his brother wants it
2. lots of people want it
3. somebody wants it

I also have a list of requested docs and white papers, available upon
request.  I can refine this list more if people give me pointers as to
_how_ they want it refined.  Also, I don't think I'm on hackers (scott?)

so if you want to reply to me make sure I'm copied.

Thanks,
Taska

---
1 Internationalization/Localization
1 Red Hat 7.1 support
1 Red Hat 7.2 support
1 Nautilus CD
1 Embedded Mozilla downloading
1 Automounting floppies, etc.
1 Viewer for zip, bzip, tar, rpm etc. (gnome-vfs supported things)
1 SMB support
1 Cut/copy/paste files
1 Open folder/binary in terminal window
1 Easily create "launcher" icons on desktop
1 Mozilla-style popup menu and middle-button features while web browsing

1 Speed
2 Ability to Modify Text
2 Refined mime-type editing for file type recognition
2 Group properties dialog
2 Shuffle/repeat in music view
2 Default preferences in directories (no metafile for folders in default

view?)
2 Soft links by clicking on desktop
2 Popup menu option "new text document"
2 Keyboard-enabling for tree view, etc.
2 "filter" view to only show one type of files in a folder (or restrict
search to one folder?)
2 Popup menu option "grab ownership of this file" (asks for password)
2 Nautilus politer to desktop when taking over desktop
2 Edit mp3 tags
2 Quit option
2 FTP with login support, ftp support, scp via ssh support
3 Auto-complete URLs
3 Auto-rip CDs
3 DVD
3 View as Video
3 Context Sensitive Help
3 Help system - knowledgebase link
3 Help system - alternative web resources link
3 syslets
3 System Inventory
3 Roaming setup information
3 Snapshot backup information
3 Ability to align desktop items to grid
3 Middle-button-drag file to folder, see popup menu (asks, copy? link?
move?)
3 Show file permissions in list view
3 More thumbnail views (pdf, rendered html, Preview animated gifs)
3 Support for visual disbilities- magnify, speechify?
3 Ability to change file name in list view without properties dialog
3 edit m3u files
3 Change font size
3 Remember form contents in browser when hitting "back"
3 When viewing PS or PDF files, pointer should change to hand or
scrollbars should appear to indicate that you can move around the
document
3 Ability to share or import Mozilla bookmarks
3 Add online storage to tree view
3 "Virtual folder" for music-view
3 Ability to make column widths in list view even wider
3 Double-click on a column title in list view to automatically optimize
column width
3 More control over when/if Medusa indexing runs (set time in prefs?)
3 emblems for marking files "in use" or "locked" for use in shared
folders
---

ELI's MAIL
--------
For your reading pleasure, here's my personal opinion of the most common
complaints that have come to us in the week since 1.0 was shipped. This
may be a useful
starting point for 1.2 features.

(I've omitted "Nautilus is way too slow", since that's already on the
to-improve list for 1.2.)

 --------

#1 (must-have). Add the ability to relocate files through the
Cut/Copy/Paste commands.

(Filed as bug #100; has duplicates 5714, 7323)

"I have found it to be short of what I consider to be basic functions
(copy/cut/paste)..."

"I'm amazed that the "future" of GNOME doesn't include a simpler way to
move files. You SHOULD NOT have to open multiple windows to move a few
files. Simply put,
the lack of cut and paste (or something similar) is reason enough to
switch to KDE."

"Being able to cut, copy and paste files is one of the few GUI
innovations that Apple can't take to its credit. Is that why Eazel is so
opposed to it? Do they feel it's a
Microsoft thing and therefore "evil" by default? I tell you, even some
of the features in Windows are useful. Please don't get stuck in any
"don't invented here" mentality."

"- I really miss the file copy/paste feature."

"Suggestion for making filemanagement easier.
The only way I have found to move or copy folders and files is to use
drag-and-drop.
It would be a lot easier to manage files and folders if I could use
Copy, Cut and Paste from the Edit-menu. The shortcut-keys would of
course be ctrl+c, ctrl+x and
ctrl+v."

"I think that it's a mistake, though, to release v.1 without such a
basic feature as cut/paste/copy of files. I can understand cutting some
spurious features for a first release,
but it seems strange that you did include a lot of fluff like automatic
MP3 preview and emblems, while leaving out one of the most basic
functions of a file manager."

"In winblows, you can cut copy paste files... this is really, really
handy and I miss it... please consider adding this feature..."


*** #2: Solve the "Help! I can't quit Nautilus and I don't know why!"
problem

Users don't understand why Nautilus respawns itself after they've
selected "Launch Nautilus when GNOME starts up" in the Druid.

Half of Eazel's QE staff were confused by this. Several inquiries made
post-1.0 on IRC; didn't save them.


*** #3. Allow Bootstrap Installer users to recover if first attempt
fails.

(if Bootstrap Installer survives LoudCloud transition) A lot of users
reported installation failures, followed by the installer rejecting a
re-installation because the user
"already had the latest version".

"My install was incomplete, but the installer thinks it was, and will
not let me reinstall. Tried the support page, but can't get to it.
Nothing is there. I understand there have
been financial difficulties and was wondering if this project is ending.
Very promising product."

"Nautilus 1.0 Installer (eazel-installer-rpm4.sh) stopped during its
installing processure, after 33M installation (44 package ..I guess).
then every time I resume installation
, i see the message 'You've already get the most recent version of
Nautilus,so there's nothing new to install' did I do something wrong?.."

"installer crashed during installation when I run it now it tells me
that almost all the files are already installed. It does not show up in
my gnome applications anywhere. It is
in my root/tmp file. how do I run it? thanks!

"my install crashed, and now the installer won't reinstall because I
already "have the current version". What files do I need to delete in
order to reinstall this thing?"

"Okay: I installed Nautilus, and I guess I am ready, even though the
installer did not state that it was finished (it hung on ORBit and then
when I clicked cancel and tried to
run it again it said Nautilus was installed already). So how do I start
Nautilus?"

"How do I uninstall Nautilus if I've used the installer?"

"I admit that I haven't been playing with Nautilus for very long but so
far I see no mention of the ability to uninstall... in my case I was
half way through RPM installation
(after they'd downloaded) and hit cancel thinking I could easily come
back and do it again when I had more time. Now when I try and re-install
it says I've already got
Nautilus (which I don't). HOW do you get the installer to wake up? How
do you uninstall? Thank you."

"Hi I failed to install nautillus successfully. I was running through
the script and it hung for a while so I cancelled the install and then,
next time I ran the script it told me that
it was already installed. Please advise as i would really like to
install nautillus.
Thanks"


#4. Ability to delete files without using the Trash

"Is there any way to delete without use of Trash? Maybe really destroy
the data as Konqueror has..?
"Set an option to be able to delete files without confirmation. (i'm not
talking about sending the file to the "trash", i'm talking about
deleting it)"


#5. Make text readable on more backgrounds

(Explained in bug #3974)

This was asked about several times in #nautilus.

"Hi,
Thank you for producing such an excellent graphical shell for gnome. One
thing that could make it even nicer: Automatically setting the Icon text
to for good readability
compared to the background image.
When using a photo as a background, its not uncommon to have great
contrast in background color between different areas of the image,
resulting
in that having a single color for icon text will make the text
undreadable when placed over certain areas of the image. How about
testing the
"average" intensity/color of the area on which an icon is about to be
drawn before drawing it, and automatically selecting a text color with
good
contrast to this average before drawing the icon? Or maybe you interface
gurus can come up with an even better way to solve the problem... ;)"


#6. Instructions to uninstall Nautilus --- I can do these if we'll have
a support site.

{I've seen requests, not saved.}


#7: 'Mozilla won't work within Nautilus'

A lot of people have complained that Mozilla isn't working for them, and
have no clue where to start. If there are common failure scenarios,
perhaps we could provide
better error messages to help people solve the problem? (I'm totally
ignorant of this area.)