Re: Nautilus usability and nit-picks

[Carlos 'Fjrb' Almeida <fjrb netcabo pt>]

> > Is it the right-thing-to-do to follow the Microsoft Windows(Tm) way of 
> > move/copy when our file system philosophy is so different? (thats an 
> > actual question, not rhetorical) or are we over-duplicating windows 
> > behaviour here?
> 
> I don't think we should.  In unix, volumes are below the filesystem 
> abstraction -- volumes aren't supposed to be user-visible.
> 
> If they aren't user-visible, then they shouldn't decide user-level behavior.
> 
> I can open up / in nautilus, and copy a file into tmp/ and etc/, and the 
> file will be copied to etc/ but moved to tmp/.  There isn't any visible 
> difference between tmp/ and etc/, but they get different actions. 
> That's bad.
> 
> And what's the benefit of copying files between volumes instead of 
> moving them?  The only thing I can think of is that maybe you expected 
> to keep a copy on your original volume... but if the new volume 
> disconnects or disappears, you won't be able to undo your action later 
> on when you realize your mistake.  Proposed Solution: when moving a file 
> between volumes, put a copy of it into the Trash Can so that you can 
> restore it later.  But who knows if this is an actual usability problem 
> in practice.

Completely agreed.

Perhaps Move should be the default, and copy available in context as
optional. Obvious exceptions are detachable devices like Cd-Roms,
floppies, etc ...

The thing you mentioned above about getting copy for on dir and move to
another, is a flagrant inconsistency, even if the mouse cursors shows
it. It's one of those Windows things that really shouldn't be
replicated.