Re: volumes mark 2

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 17:29, Jürg Billeter wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 15:38, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 09:33, Jürg Billeter wrote:
> > > 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.
> I don't think it's the worst possible combination. I see your point, I
> see what could confuse users. You know that Windows uses a similar
> approach: The "My Documents" icon and similar ones are virtual icons on
> the desktop which link to a directory outside the Desktop directory. If
> you're right, all Windows users are confused by these icons...
> 
> I would be at least a much confused with your solution, why shall all my
> Documents, Pictures, etc. be in my Desktop folder?
> 
> Perhaps these virtual icons should be marked with an emblem to make a
> distinction to user created ("real") folders.

The problem with virtual icons like this is that they just don't work
everywhere. User mental models are very easy to break, if they once see
that their directory is gone when using some strange app they discard
the model and come up with a more complicated one trying to describe how
it works. We want the model to be easy. Magic folders are cool, they
just have to be magic enough, and we can't guarantee that. MS can
however.

> > 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.)
> I'm not sure. Perhaps you're right, the user shouldn't see much a
> difference in local and remote storage devices. But perhaps there is a
> better describing name than just "Computer". For me, "Storage" doesn't
> sound bad, but this decision shall probably be taken by a native English
> speaker.
> OTOH if you want to have the two things merged, they should alwasy be
> merged. IOW there can't be a network: uri but IIRC from your mails you
> don't plan to remove/merge this uri.

Sure, "Computer" might not be the greatest name. Both "Computer" and
"Storage" sound ok to me, but i was never a great namer either.

About network:, that is a different thing in my proposal. Its a way to
browse/discover the network, and not related to the storage you
typically use. So they are not really that related.

> > > 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. 
> I proposed above that removable media won't be directly thrown on the
> desktop, so there won't be many icons. And users with smaller
> resolutions should have the possibility to remove/hide it for sure. But
> I definitively hate the idea that it's impossible to see removable media
> without looking on the desktop below all my open windows.

The idea is to try to expose it in other places too.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an all-American drug-addicted dog-catcher whom everyone believes is mad. 
She's an enchanted bisexual angel fleeing from a Satanic cult. They fight 
crime!