Re: volumes mark 2

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 09:33, Jürg Billeter wrote:
> Sorry to jump in the discussion a bit late, but these weeks I don't have
> an internet connection most of the time :(
> 
> On Fri, 2003-09-19 at 15:41, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > 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.)
> I would tend to another solution: The Documents, Pictures, Music folders
> are in ~ but there are icons on the desktop which open these folders.
> The icons can be purely virtual (like the Trash icon) or
> .desktop-Entries. The advantage (and disadvantage) of the virtual
> version is that a user can't accidentally (but also not consciously)
> delete such an icon.
> The advantage is that the Documents folder's location remains in the
> home directory, which is IMO much more logical than in the ~/Desktop
> directory. Imagine you use a console editor to modify a document, why
> should we need to use the ~/Desktop directory in a console?

As I said before, I think this is the worst possible combination. It
just messes up both the home and the desktop concepts and creates
confusion about what directory is where.

> > 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.
> 
> - Trash: fine
> 
> - Mounted removable media / plugged in hardware: What about one (virtual
> or .desktop) icon named Storage or perhaps Devices which would be a
> container of all media etc. This way the desktop won't get cluttered.
> IIRC Ximian introduced a devices:// uri, something like that would be
> fine.
> - Links to connected servers: Similar as above, show the connected
> servers in the network:// window and put a network icon on the desktop.

How is this different from "Computer"? 
You just changed the name, and splitted out the network mounts to a
separate place. (And the split doesn't make any sense to me, you want
all your commonly used storage in one place.)

> - "Computer" link: IMO the whole "Computer" thing is not really needed
> with the Storage/Devices location.

They are basically the same.

> > 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.)
> If we use .desktop-Files or purely virtual icons, this won't be a
> Problem and the folder locations could be fixed.

No. It'd just become a source of misbehaviour because these virtual
icons wouldn't be supported everywhere and people would be confused as
to where the directory went. 

Plus it introduces back non-user-owned files on the desktop that is
forced to be there and the users can't do whatever they want with. If we
ever introduce directories like this they should be volentary, and just
introduced as an example of how the user can arrange his files. We want
the user to be able to have his files arranged however he likes them.

> I'd like to bring up an additional idea. Put all the automatically
> generated / virtual icons of the desktop on a panel, too. This could be
> in an applet or in the notification area or whatever, the main point is
> that these icons should always be visible. This idea is another reason
> for combining all the removable media in one and all the network servers
> in one icon; we can't have dozens of icons by default in the panel.

The panel is already overfull with things. The icons we're proposing
hardly fits on the desktop at smaller resolutions. How can it ever fit
on the panel. 

We couldn't decide on what to use the notification area for, but surely
having the file manager icons there wasn't on the proposed lists. That
sounds like a really bad match to me. Its not "notifying" you of
anything.

> The tree view of the file manager should have the following root nodes:
> + Home Folder (or Persoal Files if that fits better)
> + Filesystem [Root]
> + Storage/Devices
>   - removable media, etc...
> + Network
>   - connected servers,...
> + Trash

You want the removable media/network to be under an actual subtree? That
sounds bad to me. There isn't gonna be much mounted media, so this just
wastes space when its empty and time when you have to open it. 

> In the first volume-handling mail you were asking what to do with burn:.
> I'd like to see it in the Storage/Devices root as "New CD" or something
> like that. The idea is that it's like a virtual device/disc. It can't be
> connected to the cd device, as one can have multiple cd recorders or
> perhaps one doesn't have any cd recorders but we want to create a .iso
> file anyway.

Yeah. This is the easiest solution, and I haven't really heard another
that always works and is implementable.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an immortal small-town farmboy from a doomed world. She's a 
transdimensional belly-dancing college professor from a different time and 
place. They fight crime!