Re: Nautilus Script Download Statistics

[Luis Villa <louie ximian com>]

Wow, Shane. Thanks for those. I can't do anything with them, but they're
definitely useful data on what clued-in folks think nautilus is good for
and lacking natively. Thanks again-
Luis

On Wed, 2002-08-14 at 23:10, Shane Mueller wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> With Gnome2 out and Nautilus stabilizing (great job!), it may be time to
> think again about how it is used and how it could be made better. I
> maintain the nautilus scripts repository at
> <http://g-scripts.sourceforge.net>. Before I moved it to sourceforge,
> between the months of September and around April, I was able to
> accumulate some detailed statistics about which scripts were the most
> popular, and I thought I might share them here to provide more insight
> into the ways people are extending the functionality of Nautilus, and
> thus how Nautilus might be improved.  Keep in mind a few things about
> these numbers:
> 
>  * This was all pre-gnome2
>  * Some scripts evolved from simple to complex, so they may appear
> various times as they were renamed
>  * Similarly, there are several scripts that duplicate other scripts'
> functionalities.
>  * The number of downloads for a script is a function of many things
> that are not really indicators of popularity, such as: where it appeared
> on the page, when it appeared on the website, and whether it was linked
> to from an outside email list/discussion website.
>  * These numbers do not indicate which ones actually get USED, only
> which ones people looked at or downloaded.
>  * Even the less popular scripts can be interesting to take notice of,
> because someone sat down a wrote it, most likely to solve a problem
> he/she was having.
>  
> These scripts also say a little about the entire Gnome environment,
> which may be of interest to some other gnome-related email lists.  If
> you are a member of an email list that might find these numbers
> interesting, please forward it on (and cc: me).
> 
> I'll make a few comments about them, which you should feel free to skip
> if you don't want to listen to a windbag. Clearly, many of the most
> popular scripts deal with archiving/compression. I don't think anyone
> needs to be told that it would be a boon if nautilus/gnomevfs could
> handle compressed files more transparently.  Also, the 'terminal-here'
> is a big seller, which is not surprising and has been partially
> incorporated into Nautilus2 (but only on the desktop, which makes it no
> different from a launcher on your panel). 
> 
> A number of scripts appear to be popular because nautilus/gnome does not
> provide a good way to access their functionality from the 'Open' menu. 
> For instance the 'gedit' script just opens up the selected files in
> gedit. It is easy to open text files in gedit by double-clicking, but
> when you want to open an arbitrary config file or a .desktop file, or
> multiple files simultaneously, it can be tricky. An easy workaround is
> to use a script (otherwise, you have to open gedit from a menu, then
> drag the files into the app window or navigate with the file dialog).
> Plus, some of these types of scripts offer benefits over the standard
> 'Open' menu, because they work with multiple files, or they may send
> files to a running process (e.g., Queue to XMMS), or can be used on a
> directory (e.g., XMMS), or they may allow the program to be invoked with
> special arguments.   One incredibly useful example is the 'run' script,
> which allows you to type in the name of any arbitrary command-line into
> a dialog box, and then executes that line on all selected files. Some of
> these application-opening scripts appear to be popular simply because
> people can't figure out a way to associate the right file-types with the
> appropriate application (e.g., the xine script). In my opinion, the
> popularity of the scripts in this paragraph may point out some of the
> weaknesses in the current the UI of the "Open" and the filetype
> association database application. I don't have any good suggestions
> about how this can be improved, but it might be nice to make it simple
> to add a script from the scripts directory to the 'Open' menu.
> 
> There are a number of scripts I would call 'command-line automation'
> scripts--people have automated often-repeated but complicated
> command-line processes by making a script out of it. Things like
> create-vcd, scp_to_host, and numerous picture/document conversion
> scripts are examples. People have even experimented with things like
> all-in-one LaTeX and make/build scripts. Although some of these are
> general purpose enough to be useful across the file system, many of
> their functionalities could be performed by making a launcher in the
> appropriate directory that runs the script, so that it is only in the
> place that you need it.  Needless to say, this is not at all obvious,
> and is difficult to perform unless you have the 'make-launcher' script
> from
> http://g-scripts.sourceforge.net/nautilus-scripts/System%20Configuration/make_launcher ).  It has been addressed on the desktop (the context menu include a 'New launcher' option), but not for arbitrary directories.
> 
> There are a handful of popular scripts that do different filesystem
> things (like chmod) or system configuration things (e.g., install_rpm),
> often replacing functionality that exists on other desktop systems
> (e.g., new-text-document). The creation and popularity of such scripts
> may point out other places where nautilus/Gnome's configuration
> capabilities are weak. For example, many of them allow changes to be
> made to an entire group of files, unlike Nautilus's current properties
> dialog.
> 
> Anyway, it's just a little food for thought for anyone who wants to do
> some Gnome/Nautilus hacking. Here are the numbers, organized into groups
> of scripts that perform essentially identical operations.
> 
> Number  Percent Script Name
> ------------------------------------
> Archive Creation: 4208
> 1842	0.0751	archiver-unarchiver(also found in decompression)
> 783	0.0319	ultimate-archiver
> 361	0.0147	gnome-archive
> 343	0.0140	gzip
> 312	0.0127	create_targz
> 299	0.0122	bzip2
> 188	0.0077	create-zip
> 29	0.0012	compress+option
> 24	0.0010	Compress__.bz2_
> 17	0.0007	Compress__.gz_
> 10	0.0004	create-targz
> ----
> Archive Decompression: 3877
> 1842	0.0751	archiver-unarchiver (also found in creation)
> 1207	0.0492	super-extractor
> 316	0.0129	unrar
> 266	0.0108	gb-unzip
> 211	0.0086	uncompress_all
> 35	0.0014	Decompress
> ----
> Terminal launching: 2326
> 1763	0.0719	terminal-here
> 387	0.0158	root-terminal-here
> 176	0.0072	xsu-terminal-here
> ----
> CD-ROM creation: 1130
> 751	0.0306	create-vcd
> 209	0.0085	burn_iso
> 135	0.0055	burn_dir
> 35	0.0014	QuickBurn
> ----
> RPM installation: 1122
> 1038	0.0423	install_rpm
> 84	0.0034	RPM-install-update
> ----
> SCP automation: 710
> 400	0.0163	scp_to_host
> 310	0.0126	scp2host
> ----
> File emailing: 599
> 222	0.0091	mailinbalsa
> 156	0.0064	mail_file
> 119	0.0049	mail_file2
> 102	0.0042	mail_image
> ----
> 516	0.0210	gedit
> 507	0.0207	Queue to XMMS
> 486	0.0198	make-nautilus-script
> 463	0.0189	XMMS
> 396	0.0161	gtk-du
> 357	0.0146	dos2unix
> 354	0.0144	wordcount
> 353	0.0144	root-nautilus-here
> 348	0.0142	ggrep
> 324	0.0132	pprint
> 322	0.0131	run
> 319	0.0130	lowercase
> 312	0.0127	mimetype
> 309	0.0126	chmod
> 307	0.0125	filetype
> 304	0.0124	chmog
> 301	0.0123	ps2pdf
> 296	0.0121	xemacs
> 270	0.0110	xine
> 260	0.0106	uppercase
> 247	0.0101	dv_to_mpg
> 246	0.0100	convert_to_jpeg
> 246	0.0100	Show Digital Photo EXIF data
> 236	0.0096	new-text-document
> 236	0.0096	set_exec
> 225	0.0092	glimmer
> 220	0.0090	convert_to_png
> 219	0.0089	copyhome
> 210	0.0086	ghex
> 198	0.0081	rotate_jpg_left
> 193	0.0079	maker
> 188	0.0077	Get Photos
> 185	0.0075	print
> 184	0.0075	archiver-config
> 162	0.0066	moveup
> 148	0.0060	set_read_only
> 140	0.0057	rotate_jpg_right
> 135	0.0055	mirror_jpg
> 133	0.0054	rotate_image
> 119	0.0049	create_file
> 119	0.0049	linker
> 105	0.0043	scale_image_to_sizes
> 101	0.0041	concatenate
> 101	0.0041	Set_as_Wallpaper
> 100	0.0041	scale_image
> 99	0.0040	mp3_to_ogg
> 98	0.0040	search_n_replace
> 96	0.0039	doublespace
> 96	0.0039	Naudilus
> 88	0.0036	latex2ps
> 73	0.0030	Create_Thumbnail
> 60	0.0024	latex
> 49	0.0020	Install_Galeon_Theme
> 41	0.0017	junksorter
> 40	0.0016	pseudo-nautilus
> 29	0.0012	to_upper
> 26	0.0011	create web gallery
> 8	0.0003	converter
> 
> 
> -- 
> nautilus-list mailing list
> nautilus-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list
>