[Nautilus-list] Nautilus usability suggestions.

[Erik Nordström <erno3431 student uu se>]

Hello,

I am not a subscriber of this mailing list, but I do follow it from
time to time time through the archives, because I think Nautilus is a
very exciting application. I have discovered some issues with Nautilus
I would like to share with you. They are mostly usability related and
I apologize if some of them have already been discussed/raised on this
list. These are of course only suggestions...

* The right click desktop menu needs to be cleaned up and
  restructured. Why not put some nice icons in there?  
  All the "New <item>" options should be on a submenu i.e:

New-> Window
      Folder
      Terminal

Also missing is "New launcher" to create your own application
launchers on the desktop as you can on the gnome panel. This submenu
could also be filled in with "New text document" and so on, without
cluttering the main right-click menu.

The reset desktop background should not be accessible from this
context menu, since it is easily selected by accident. What is it
useful for anyway? This option should be available under "Change
Desktop Background".

I believe the "Disks" option can be somewhat confusing to
newbies. Wouldn't it be better to name it something like "Access...",
"Access my..." or Access devices..."?

Example:

Access my... -> Floppy
	     -> cdrom

* Also I think there should be a virtual folder where you can mount
  and unmount these devices by clicking on icons, like under "My
  Computer" in windows. The contents of this virtual folder would be
  automatically filled by the same contents as in the Disks menu. This
  would be the central place to access devices.  Maybe the device
  icons could even be listed in the sidebar of the "user's home"
  directory or in a standalone sidebar tab called "Devices" so that
  they are always accessible. This would make it easy to drag-n-drop 
  your documents to a floppy or other removable media without having
  to worry about the icon on the desktop being obstructed.

* Everytime an icon is moved and then dropped on the desktop there is
  some disk activity. This may be a non-issue, but I wonder if this
  behavior is really necessary or just a bug?

* Drag and drop of icons from the desktop to gnome panel does not
  work.

* When selecting right-click->Show Properties on icons there is no
  close button in the dialog window that appears. Most other dialog
  windows in Gnome has a close button. Relying on the window managers
  close button can be a bit confusing since different themes may or
  may not contain that option, or it may be located in different
  places.

* Another related issue occurs when selecting "Show Properties" on
  folders that contain lots of files. Then nautilus starts heavy disk
  activity to estimate the size of the contents. Maybe this could be
  an option? So if nautilus detects large folders there would be a
  button beside the "Contents:" that says "Estimate" or "Calculate".

* When emptying the trash and there are lots of "trash" nautilus takes
  a really long time just scanning all the files (or something) before
  actually deleting them. Emptying the trash should be quick, even if
  lots of files are to be deleted.

* Maybe not Nautilus related, but I would really like to see (better)
  context based mouse pointers so that the pointer change if hovering
  over an icon. Lets face it, the default X-pointers suck.

* When clicking on icons there is some "dead" space between the actual
  icon and the icon text where you can click while nothing
  happens. This can be very frustrating. If the pointer is within the
  combined borders of the icon and the text, it shouldn't matter where
  you click.

* The default nautilus icon (the shell) must be replaced. It sucks.

* The "user's Home" icon on the desktop should also be available on
  the gnome panel.

* When changing the backgrounds in nautilus with "Backrounds and
  Emblems..." there should be a option to apply the new colors or
  backgrounds as default for all folders in nautilus not just the
  current one.

Ok, this is it for now I think... ;-)

/Erik Nordström