Re: The location bar in a OO UI



Perhaps the answer is going to be some sort of ugly stepchild of an
object oriented UI, especially in the near term.  An OO design would be
pretty painful until we have things like spring-loaded folders, faster
window construction times, etc.  While focusing on a paradigm is great,
and can make things more consistent, we can't forget that the reason
we're doing this all is to make people's lives easier (at least while
they're using GNOME).  So a generic "open location" thing is a great
idea, because that makes my life easier whether or not I'm using a
navigational style UI or an OO ui.  It is supposed to work that way now,
but it has a few bugs (like not handling spaces in filenames properly,
etc).  Stuff like that *is* useful.  

One trouble that I think is significant with OO file management is
dealing with unusual locations.  Like remote locations, or hidden
directories, etc.  It is more of a pain to open them.  

Also, a really cool concept that I'd like to see Nautilus incorporate is
the EFM "command buffer" - where I can just start typing in a shell
command that takes effect in the current directory.  Or a quick way of
indicating a file filter (like *.jpg in my Pictures directory).  Does
that even make sense in an OO file manager?  Should it pop up a new
window for the custom view?  Or do we need vfolders first? (I'd argue
that having vfolders for normal files is going to be the biggest win, in
terms of abstracting away the UNIX filesystem, and letting people get at
the stuff that they want.  There's a reason why google is so popular
compared to portal sites - good searching is more important than being
able to browse easily.)

While considering the Nautilus UI, perhaps once we identify what the end
goal is, we can look at what are solid intermediate points that make
sense as end-user software.  Personally I'd like to see at least some
notions of OO file management happen, but quite frankly, I'd be pleased
if we just got things like spring-loaded folders, a bug-free run/open
dialog, vfolders, and command buffers.  

	--Ryan

On Wed, 2002-09-04 at 18:00, bordoley msu edu wrote:
> Just wanted to chime in this idea (i'm sorry this is a topic dear to my 
> heart...)
> 
> An OO nautilus does not mean a death to the location bar. In a OO nautilus 
> however the location bar would not be per window but instead per desktop.
> 
> How this would work.
> 
> Using the current gnome ui as an example.
> 
> In the actions menu there would be a menu item called "go to location..." 
> this would pop up a dialog that would be very similar to the current nautilus 
> location bar in behavior.
> 
> A usr would enter the path of the directory, ftp location, web dave location 
> etc. into the location dialog, and this would pop open a nautilus window to 
> the directory.
> 
> This dialog could have a global keybinding as well.  
> 
> dave
> -- 
> nautilus-list mailing list
> nautilus-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list

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