Re: RFC: Rethinking icon auto-arranging for the spatial metaphor

[Douglas Royds <douglas royds tait co nz>]

Dave Ahlswede wrote:
> 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?

Perhaps this is already covered, but I'd also like to see a 
manual-arrange with automatic lining-up-to-grid. What I'd like to be 
able to do is drag the files into my preferred order, but have Nautilus 
automatically line them up on the nearest grid point, moving others down 
as necessary.

This would be useful with digital photos, allowing me to order them 
within the folder according to my taste, and allowing scanned photos to 
be ordered in amongst photos that have been time-stamped by a digital 
camera.

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