RFC: Rethinking icon auto-arranging for the spatial metaphor

[Dave Ahlswede <mightyquinn letterboxes org>]

One of the advantages of a spatial file manager is that the user can use
muscle memory to a much greater degree to locate items in a folder--
however, at the moment, Nautilus' implementation for is a little less
than ideal. 

Nautilus will, by default, automatically rearrange items in a folder as
necessary if a new file is created or deleted, jumbling the order and
making it necessary to re-learn locations of the items. The manual
placement option exists, but it seems somewhat limited-- it can only
clean up by order of name, and can't be made the default behavior for
folders.

Perhaps it would be better to renovate the arranging system a little..
I'm not sure what would be best, but my initial idea is to have, instead
of having a one-dimensional preference "manual, arrange by x, arrange by
y", to have it two dimensional: "manual or automatic sorting, and what
to sort by". 

In manual mode, the sort by option in the preferences panel would
control the default layout for new folders and all sorting options would
be in the menu as actions instead of options, which would do a one-time
sort of the files. If sorting were set to automatic, the menu items
would become options again and behavior would be almost identical to the
current system.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?