Re: Just an idea to please everyone

["Curtis C. Hovey" <sinzui cox net>]

On Wed, 2003-09-17 at 00:28, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 11:57:58AM +0100, Julien Olivier wrote:
> <snip>
> > I guess the main problem people are having with OO-Nautilus is the fact
> > that each folder will open in a new window. So, if you have some music
> > in ~/Desktop/Documents/Music/P/Portishead/Dummy/, . . .
> 
> Wait! Stop right there.
> 
> Why did you set it up that way in the first place?
> 
> Did your music source not have proper metadata?
> Did your downloader/ripper not attempt to get that metadata?
> Did nothing notice a music file written to disk and try to get metadata?
> Was the metadata there, but not visible in the folder?
> 
> I'm guessing Portishead is a band and Dummy is an album.
> Why did you organize by band name first? Why not album name?
> Why not be able to retrieve easily it either way? At a bare minimum,
> why don't you have a Details view with sortable columns appropriate to
> the data?
> 
> Why is the primary view of the directory ~/Desktop/Documents/Music a folder
> instead of a music player? Does a gnumeric file open in a text editor showing
> the xml, or does it open in gnumeric? Why then does the system present you
> with a folder where a music player is more appropriate?
> 
> Why did you put the Music folder in the Documents folder?
> 
> Sorry for the battery of questions, but every designer and programmer should
> be asking questions like these about everything. Consider:
> 
>  - If the Music icon is on the desktop, it's one step closer. This isn't
>    Windows where the desktop is a billboard for every app you install.
>    You don't have to deeply nest folders because of icon clutter.
>  - If the default view of the Music directory is a music player, that's about
>    3 steps closer. (I'm guessing the actual music is in the Dummy directory.)
>  - If the folder view of the Music directory is metadata-aware, then you
>    don't need deep directories to sort it - and you can change the sort
>    more easily.
>  - If something (say, the file _manager_) detects a music file and can
>    get some metadata, you don't have to. Even if the initial metadata is
>    sparse (e.g., file named ABCD1234 and nothing else), there's still the
>    data itself. Maybe the best the system can do is a fuzzy match - e.g.,
>    audio data is similar to audio data from Quux genre. But, hey, computers
>    are stupid and the smart user (relatively, any user) can have some
>    indication (maybe an emblem) that the computer is confused and say,
>    "Ha ha! Stupid computer! That's Portishead, not Radiohead." This should
>    not be popping up an alert or requiring any data from the user! What's
>    needed is a modeless indication to the user that the computer is confused;
>    something like the "alarms" discussed in the 8th chapter of
>    "Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines - Advanced Topics":
>      http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/at/book/index.html
>      http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/at/book/Alarms.html
>    That, and a easy way for the user to correct the computer.
> 
> This example is specific to music and mentions technology I've never even
> seen - audio analysis to identify genre, band, etc.[*] - but I hope you can
> see that similar things apply to other types of data.
> 
> Another example: email. If ~/evolution were renamed to Mail (either in $HOME
> or on the desktop), and the file manager recognized it as a collection
> of mailboxes instead of just a directory, then double-clicking the Mail icon
> on the desktop or in the home folder could open Evolution instead of just a
> folder. The user should not need to be bothered by the implementation detail
> of what application presents the view, but the programmers and designers
> need that detail. I'm not suggesting the file manager handle mailboxes,
> though that shouldn't be hard to do for a fallback.
> 
> Deep hierarchies are not a problem for an object-oriented user interface so
> much as they are a problem for users. Lack of a model, or the presence of a
> bad model, has exacerbated the problem. Though humans naturally create
> hierarchies, they are more flexible, redundant, and intricate than any
> computer hierarchy. Even in that most obvious hierarchy, taxonomy, there
> are at least two major theories of classification, occasional upper-level 
> restructurings, disputes, and "hard cases". Human hierarchies tend to be
> expedient and unprincipled, with notable exceptions in kind and degree in 
> science, business, armies, and governments. Where hierarchies are deep,
> the humans often specialize and deal with only shallow part.
> 
> I hope this change in Nautilus will discourage managing depth and encourage
> eliminating depth.
> 
> Cheers,
> Greg
> 
> [*] Maybe this kind of audio analysis does exist. I've seen car radios that
>     adjust to the type of music a station plays, but that may be because
>     of "metadata" in the signal.

Cheers from the masses (or just me).  Well said.

-- 
__C U R T I S  C.  H O V E Y____________________
sinzui cox net
Guilty of stealing everything I am.