Re: volumes mark 2

[Arik Devens <arik danieltiger com>]

It seems to me that you would want to put *something* like Computer  
(which btw should be a user editable name) on the desktop, because  
otherwise it won't be at all obvious to a new user where the root of  
the filesystem (in a semiotic way, not in a literal unix way) is.

Also, the idea of having default folders on the desktop seems like an  
alright one to me as long as they are just regular folders, and not  
some sort of non-removable icon like Windows has. That way you suggest  
possible sorting to new users but allow them to disregard them with  
ease if they choose.

Arik

On Friday, September 19, 2003, at 09:41  am, Alexander Larsson wrote:

> It seems like my initial proposal was in general accepted. The parts
> that were discussed were mainly the role of the desktop, the relation
> between the desktop and home and the desktop <-> home loop.
>
> This is another proposal, which apart from the desktop is much like
> the initial proposal. Except we decided that there will be no
> printers, scanners or other hardware in the filesystem. The place for
> such things are in the control center.
>
> In the original email the model of the desktop was basically "place to
> store some files and icons for commonly used places". A lot of people
> want a stronger concept of the desktop than that.
>
> When discussing this someone always brings up the desktop-is-home
> setting now available as a hidden setting. In some ways this is a very
> nice setup. However, in practice there are various issues that make
> this not really possible to use by default. (Some people disagree with
> me, but lets not have that old discussion again.)
>
> I'd like to propose we use a model that Dave calls desktop-as-home. In
> this model all the files the user normally handles (written documents,
> downloaded files, etc) are stored inside the desktop (typically in
> subdirectories reachable directly from the desktop), much as if the
> desktop were the actual homedir.
>
> There would be no home icon on the desktop, and the file selector and
> other things should default to the Desktop for loading and saving
> files. (Technically this is easily accomplished by starting apps with
> ~/Desktop as the current working directory.)
>
> Also on the desktop, as before, is trash, mounted removable media,
> plugged in hardware (mp3 players, cameras etc) and links to connected
> servers. I'm not sure whether we want a "Computer" link on the
> desktop, but I think not. Its not a commonly used thing, since all the
> mounted volumes are already reachable from the desktop.
>
> Places like home, computer and network are easily reached from menus
> in the nautilus window and the panels. I'd also like to re-introduce
> the favorites system as a way to quickly reach commonly used
> places. Favorites is more important in a spatial system, since deep
> navigation is more work.
>
> This setup completely avoids the desktop <-> home loop, and avoids the
> problem of desktop-is-home, while still giving you most of the  
> benefits.
>
> Note: If you're an old grey-beard like me you can easily drag a
> home-link to the desktop, or drag a navigation-window launcher to the
> panel. What we're trying to set up here is a default way for causal
> users to handle the system in a productive and non-confusing way.
>
> Since the desktop is the default place for user files now people are
> gonna have to structure it a bit better, using directories. New users
> might not immediately figure this out, so it would be nice if we could
> create a few directories by default. Say "Documents", "Photos" and
> "Music". These could then be used as default start locations for
> specific apps, allowing users to structure their files
> "automatically".
>
> The hard part about such directories like this is that they need to be
> translated, and the apps using them need to find them, but the apps
> may be running in different locales etc. Furthermore, it would be nice
> if the directories could be renamed and things would still work. One
> way this could be done is to place a ".docdir" file in
> ~/Desktop/Documents, and look for that when locating the
> directory. This is pretty fast to locate the few times you need it,
> and the result is easy to cache (you just need one stat to validate
> the cache). This even allows you to rename the directory if you
> want. (And if the ~/Desktop/*/.docdir is not found we'll use ~/Desktop
> as the default instead.)
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 
> =-=-=
>  Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat,  
> Inc
>                    alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se
> He's an impetuous overambitious farmboy haunted by an iconic dead  
> American
> confidante She's a high-kicking winged schoolgirl with a  
> flame-thrower. They
> fight crime!
>
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