Re: Templates directory looks pretty bare

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Sat, 2004-07-31 at 14:15, Jeff Waugh wrote:

> Any app that installs to /home/*/Templates/ (obviously a stupid guess in
> itself) is EVIL.

yes installing to every home folder would be but installing to /etc/skel
should be okay?

My feeling is it might be good to allow creation of new documents by
both templates and Mime types. IE if the "text" Mime type was defined in
the Mime database we could then have "Create Text File" in the menu in
addition to templates.

>  Whether it was an app (bad) or an admin/user (good) doing
> the install, there's no reason why they couldn't use sane names. These
> issues are not connected.

Okay they are not connected but it is nevertheless an issue. Having
"Create Text File.txt" might look nice on the menu but is not
appropriate for the default name of the file. We could for example
always default to using "New File.ext". 

> 
> > > That's why only ~/Templates is read, and why it's left entirely up to
> > > the user (in their home directory), admin or distribution (in
> > > /etc/skel).
> > 
> > It would be nicer if the Home Templates folder was hidden (in say
> > ~/.nautilus/Templates) and a menu entry for "Add to Templates" was added
> > to the selection popup in Nautilus - its not obvious at all to users what
> > the Templates folder in the Home folder does nor is it obvious how to add
> > such templates to Nautilus. I'm happy to do the work for this if Alex
> > agrees it would be useful.
> 
> a) it's up to the admin or distro as to whether Templates is in /etc/skel

We should allow apps to set something up too if possible or as I said
above derive new entries from the Mime database.

> b) the Templates folder is visible so users can interact with it easily,
> same as Desktop

Yes but then it should be renamed NautilusTemplates or something cause
Templates is too generic especially under the Home directory - I had no
idea what the empty Templates folder did in FC2 when I first installed
it so I deleted that folder! Had I known it was used by Nautilus then I
would of course have kept it.

> 
> c) perhaps the 'Create Document' menu could include a menu item to open the
> 'Templates' directory (the existence of the 'Create Document' menu ite


That would be good. A "Manage Templates" option would be nice.

> d) changing the location of Templates would be an interface breakage anyway

Sometimes they are necessary if for the better. Templates:/// is another
option as well and it could be in the places menu too.

jamie.