Re: Volume handling proposal

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Thu, 2003-09-18 at 02:14, David Adam Bordoley wrote:
> Alexander Larsson writes: 
> 
> > 
> > I don't agree. Floppies are very seldom used these days, so i think
> > having the "empty floppy drive" icon only in "Computer" is enough. 
> > 
> 
> By doing this you are essentially hiding the floppy drive from the user and 
> restricting the descoverability of the floppy drive for users by nesting it 
> in a folder(I've always hated "my computer" for this reason). ARe you really 
> sure that floppies are seldomly used? I would think it depends more on the 
> target audience. In large corporate installs this may be true, but even in 
> university situations I still see non-technical students frequently using 
> floppies to transfer work between their home and school machines (despite 
> easily available network space). 

I don't think its that hidden in "Computer". Thats only one click away,
and is the logical place for when you just physically interacted with
the computer (inserting a floppy). Constantly having an empty floppy
icon on your desktop seems quite in the way.

> > Well, the change was to make the Desktop directory more visible from
> > various kinds of file selectors etc. I dunno if clicking on ~/Desktop
> > should show the desktop, this needs experimenting. 
> > 
> 
> In my opinion, ~/Desktop is an implementation detail more than anything 
> else. I don't think users should be exposed to this in the spacial ui. So no 
> I don't think clicking on it should "show the desktop" I also don't think 
> the folder should be shown when viewing "Home" in the spacial ui. 
> 
> Another option is to write off "Home" as a unix implemenation detail and not 
> include a link on the desktop. The file selector could default ~/Desktop as 
> the default folder in this situation, and users might never know about 
> "home". Its probably better to encourage users to save files to the desktop 
> by default anyway so that they are easily discoverable and can be easily 
> manipulated. Users can than create desktop folder such as 
> "Desktop/Documents", "Desktop/Music" etc. to store these files in. 

This is the desktop-as-home metaphor that dave likes I think. It might
be a good idea. I'm not against removing the Home link on the desktop.
If we make the file-selector start in ~/Desktop this would probably work
well.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a scarfaced voodoo gentleman spy with a secret. She's an elegant mutant 
nun with someone else's memories. They fight crime!