RE: display full path in spatial nautilus

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

> Using the full path as the window title makes the window list 
> thoroughly 
> unusable for *most* users who aren't going to have ten 
> folders with the same 
> name.[1] The majority of users don't tend to use really deeply nested 
> folders either so sacrificing these users for the minority 
> case where  a 
> developer has .../cvs/epiphany/src ..cvs/nautilus/src etc. 
> isn't really a 
> good design decision. I actually think we need a hig 
> recommendation here 
> saying that you should not include the full path of a file in 
> your apps 
> window title. [2] 

I do think that we need a way for the user to discover the current path
quickly, although it does not need to be displayed constantly. I think a
File/"Properties of Current Folder" menu item next to the current
File/Properties menu item would do this well enough, as long as there's an
accelerator key for it.

On the Mac, you click on the title bar to see the folder hierarchy. That
does the job, but it is not very discoverable.

> What I think would be a better solution imo would be to 
> change the list view 
> to be more like the macos9 list view (ie a tree). This would 
> allow you to 
> view multiple levels of hierarchy within the same window and 
> has the added 
> benefit of displaying hierarchy as a visual element as oppose 
> to requiring 
> users to see the filesystem path string and than convert it 
> mentally into 
> the filesystem folder model. This way I could open my 
> nautilus cvs folder 
> and view the whole code base as a single project which would 
> be pretty 
> useful. 

Yes, making the list view like the MacOS list view, would we wonderful. I
don't think it helps much with this particular problem but it would help
avoid the need for the spring-loaded-folders feature, because we can have
automatically-opening tree items instead.

Murray Cumming
www.murrayc.com
murrayc usa net