Re: Nautilus Preference Proposal -- another point of view

[Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it>]

Il mer, 2002-10-23 alle 18:01, Dave Bordoley ha scritto: 
> I'm just going to run through this really quickly. Note that their are
> no longer nautilus themes (well there won't be any in gnome 2.2), icon
> theming should be part of the general theme dialog.
> 
> I'm going to selectively cut and paste too, but this is just to make it
> easier to read, don't take offense please. I just don't have time to
> comment on everything.
> 
:-) I hope there was some good hacks too.

> On Wed, 2002-10-23 at 05:42, Luca Ferretti wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > ====================================================================== 
> > 
> > Design Guidelines 
> >         * have a cool preferences dialog (no notebook, please!)
> 
> Tabs are the standard hig compliant categorization method for preference
> dialogs, we should and to my knowledge will use them in any new design.
> 
Yes, i know, and I don't wont make any flame, _but_ I spend all July
translating nautilus in Italian language: was a nightmare find the right
words to make old Categories labels 'clear to users'. This 'cause
categories labels aren't too much related to pointed options, but 'cause
a simple label (1 or 2 words) can't exactly explain what exactly you can
adjust too.

Same feeling when I see your shots. i.e. "Files and Folders": how can I
recognize that here I can find trash handling or click behavior?  Or why
"Icon captions" tab is at the same level of "View"? I expect it's a
global setting, but it's only related to icon view. 

Nautilus is a very complex app. Many feature = many options => user need
more facilities to find what they want/need in dialog. 

A notebook has only label to help user. Sidebar style use label AND
icons, adding an helpful level. BTW using <b></b> in per tab sub-section
headers (i.e. "Default View") makes tabs header less visible (i.e.
"Header")....

Yeah, we can use notebook, but we need to place right option in right
pane with right header.

BTW: I found inspiration from some galeon2 preferences shots, where are
4 categoris and sidebar style, so... :-) 

> > Better: make trash a real GNOME desktop entities. Actually users can set
> > "move in trash, don't erase", use gthumb and _permanently_ remove
> > images. 
> > 
> 
> I actually would love to see all the nautilus trash handeling move into
> gnome vfs so all apps can share it, but what does this have to do with
> the preferences. I could conceivably see the show alert pref being more
> global for apps that may use the same method in the future, but again
> thats the future not now and we need to be realistic about what we can
>

Yes, we can move out trash and desktop only options, even if is a
nautilus feature and ask to Paolo Bacchilega to remove 'erase' opition
until trash is not all-gnome-managed ;-) 


> > ----Interface 
> > I disagree the galeon style *bar visibility setting. From HIG: "The View
> > menu contains only items that affect the user's view of the _current
> > document_." 
> > I expect if I want disable statusbar from all windows I've to go in
> > preferences.
> 
> In practice this is very confusing to users. What is the use case, how
> many people turn off the statusbar in one window but want it on in
> another. By enabling a global change in the view menu, we move towards a
> more directly manipulative ui. This is good.
>  
> > BTW in View menu we have zoom, view as and item placing options too:
> > they work __only__ on the folder you are viewing and not for all
> > folders. 
> 
> yeah but are you suggesting that toolbars etc. should be per directory.
> I'm a big fan of the whole object oriented ui concept and have been
> constantly trying to move nautilus toward it but in practice many per
> directory features are downright confusing to users (per directory zooms
> come to mind here).
> 

No, I'm just saying: *bar visibility in _all_ windows come from
Edit->Preferences but if you need to turn off/on one of those only in
current windows and only until you close this windows you can do this in
View menu. Old, traditional, conservative nautilus style. 

In Object Oriented Metaphor you don't need location bar, sidebar and
probably toolbar too. See old BeOS tracker. Personally I dislike it, but
it work as is. 
But a "*bar per directory viewing capabilities" is bad for developers
and bad for users. 

Nautilus is a "Multiple document, multiple or single view" 'cause you
can select "Open" or "Open in a new window" as a global option or,
simply, choose from popup menu. _Both are useful_, someone like first, 
others like second, all love choose every time the best for current
browsing.
Plus, nautilus has viewers, so you can simply view same file in
different ways (view as text, view as html) and different items in same
window. 

But all windows need same interface: only views can change.

Yeah, we are talking about angels' sex, so stop here :-P

Just a question: actually rhythmbox (SDI) use Edit->Pref _and_
View->*bar to set up *bars in all present and future windows....
What we can do? 

> > ----Item Views 
> > 'cause old 'Icon Captions" category affect _only_ Icon view, it's placed
> > in Icon View preferences. New labels should be more useful then old to
> > recognize how exactly zoom works. 
> 
> My original design had these grouped with the icon preferences in the
> views menu, but this caused the tab pane to be too long. So jan and I
> comprimised and left these prefs how they are even though we're not
> happy about it :)
> 
> > 'Show Columns' in list view pref: ok, just to fill empty space, but it
> > can be useful :)) 
> 
> We need to be realistic someone needs to implement a feature before we
> can have a pref.
> 
hehehehe:-) 

> > 
> > Orphans: 
> >         * 'executable text files": I'm not sure that "Always run/view
> >           scripts" are useful. "Ask each" is the better (you can select
> >           run/run in terminal!!!) default option. If you want to change
> >           it, probably you are a very advanced user, or you need to
> >           run/view always scripts, so launch gconf-editor :-)
> 
> These prefs take up little space in mine and the current design, and do
> provide a level of security. I just don't see an immediate reason to
> remove them. They're not in the way (ie. they don't impose a bad ui) and
> may be useful to some users.
> 
??? security ?? what did you mean? 

> >         * theming capabilities: I'll send a different post on it, but
> >           take a look at preferences.glade 
> 
> They already are removed.
> 
OK, old all-in-one themes are stupid and just an eazel legacy, but what
about emblem placing? Or how can U choose trhobber in 2.2?

I know that mime/folder/dev icon came from global GNOME theme, but what
about nautilus only related theming capabilities?