Re: Nautilus desktop icons and metacity

["D. D. Brierton" <darren dzr-web com>]

On Sun, 2003-06-01 at 04:27, Steve Homer wrote:
> I'd have to say that I feel that the icons being on the left feels more
> natural and hence usable (at least to me) because
> 
> (a) every previous desktop i've used has done it that way.

I believe (although I'm not certain) that every incarnation of the Mac
OS has put desktop icons on the right.

> (b) i'm right handed and moving the mouse away from my body feels less
> "deliberate" some how.

I don't understand that point. I'm right handed, and I'm sitting in
front of my computer, and moving the mouse the right of the screen feels
no more or less natural than moving it to the left.

> (c) i'm a westerner and read left to right, so my eyes are naturally
> drawn to the left.

That, I admit, is a valid point. However, it is rather moot which
direction one's eyes are drawn in if there is nothing for them to be
drawn toward (because the things in question are immediately obscured
the minute I open a window).

> (a) is a questionable usability argument. Basically tradition vs
> innovation, or previous knowledge vs intrinsic logic. So we can strike
> that I guess.

Also, there isn't anything that innovative or tradition-breaking about
just doing what Mac OS does.

> (b) is right hander centric... but so is the world so I imagine left
> handers are very much used to thinking from a right hand persons point
> of view (much more than a right hander thinking from a left handers
> anyway).

> (c) I guess is the biggie. Perhaps default configuration of layout
> should be an localisation issue...

But if so, then default window placement and default desktop icon
position should be localised. It just seems sensible that one avoid
covering up desktop icons when possible.

> While I agree that the icons should be unobstructed wherever possible, I
> think that shifting them to the right would be confusing and
> counterproductive.

How confusing can it be, especially if one of the best known desktops
(the Macs) does that?

> In any case, the simplest approach other than
> shifting icons around would be to change metacity to open windows on the
> right hand side, 

That seems much more unnatural than having the desktop icons on the
right, but that is nothing more than a gut-feeling on my part.

> or to avoid desktop icons when possible.

I rarely use desktop icons either for application launchers or for
folders or files. However, they are *very* useful for representing
devices connected to the machine, especially hot-pluggable devices whose
icons appear and disappear as they are connected and diconnected.

-- 
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D. D. Brierton            darren dzr-web com          www.dzr-web.com
       Trying is the first step towards failure (Homer Simpson)
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