[Nautilus-list] What silly preferences do we actually use (Re: [Usability] user levels, etc.)

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Adam Elman <aelman users sourceforge net> writes: 
> Hmm.  What are they?  Why do you use them?  What tasks do they make
> easier/more pleasant for you?  What is it about your pattern of use
> that makes you so unique that it would be ridiculous for these
> settings to be in the UI?

My feeling is that most desire for preferences I would consider wrong
comes from the fact that people have used various UIs in the past, and
don't want to learn new ones. So for example, I use odd window focus
modes, weird Emacs-derived text keybindings, some funny
WindowMaker-derived window manager keybindings from when I used
WindowMaker long ago, etc. Most loud complaints about UI seem to be
based on similar stuff - someone used to do it in X way when they used
some other UI, and they want to keep doing it X way. Basically apps
tend to end up supporting all modes of operation that previous apps in
the same category have ever supported. IIRC most of the complaints
about missing stuff in Nautilus have been about "missing" (different)
features vs. Windows Explorer or gmc or the Mac file manager.

I totally understand that people don't want to learn anything new. At
the same time, it really really hoses up the UI if an app is
essentially 10 apps in one. It also makes implementation and QA a
total nightmare.

I think some battles caused by historical UIs are unwinnable. For
example, focus mode for the window manager should just be in the main
prefs dialog, even though it will really be evil for novices. But many
other issues are small enough that we can ask people to please learn a
new way of doing things, instead of cluttering interface and
implementation.

Havoc