Re: Nautilus Script Download Statistics

[<bordoley msu edu>]

If i recall correctly, i think winxp has some real nice archive handling now 
in explorer (also has integrated cd burning). Hopefully we can see both of 
these integrated more closely into nautilus, via vfs hopefully.

dave

Alex Duggan <aldug astrolinux com> said:

> Judging by the number of extraction/archiving scripts that have been
> downloaded from g-scripts, I think most users feel the same way that I
> do, nautilus needs to be able to handle tar.(gz|bz2) archives natively. 
> This might be easily done by bonobo-izing parts of file-roller.
> 
> Alex
> 
> On Thu, 2002-08-15 at 14:37, Luis Villa wrote:
> > 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
> > > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > nautilus-list mailing list
> > nautilus-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list
> -- 
> PC Load Letter? What the f*#k does that mean?
> 
> -- 
> nautilus-list mailing list
> nautilus-list gnome org
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>