Re: [PATCH] Translate the "Templates" folder

[Matthew Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On 20 Oct, 2005, at 6:08 AM, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> ...
> On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 08:58 +0200, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-10-19 at 18:56 +0200, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> > > Basically, we should set up a way for application to register new
> > > "shortcuts", instead of directly creating the directories these
> > > shortcuts point to; e.g., we could set up 
> > > ~/.gnome2/nautilus/Templates and present it as "Templates" inside 
> > > the side pane; this way, the user won't see a "Templates" directory 
> > > inside his ${HOME}.
> >
> > This is imho a very bad idea. Hiding directories and making them more
> > magic does not help people, it just confuses them as to where their
> > files are and how to easily find them from any app.
>
> "Any app" accessing these directories should use the provided API and
> standard; direct access should be exposing an implementation detail -
> and it should mean that the application's UI is broken in this respect.
> ...

Fred keeps his home directory on a USB key, and does most of his work 
with OpenOffice.org. He doesn't know what "G.N.O.M.E." is; he uses 
Fedora Core. One day, Fred's laptop dies just as he's about to write up 
a contract form. No problem; while waiting for the laptop to be 
repaired, Fred takes his USB key to an Internet cafe that has computers 
running OpenOffice.org on Windows XP. He plugs in the key, it appears 
on the desktop, he opens it, and looks for the "Contract Form" template 
... But where's the @#%$* Templates folder gone?

That Windows, and Mac OS, and any other non-Gnome system, and Fred 
himself, would not magically recognize the ".gnome2/nautilus/" 
hierarchy as being special does not make them "broken". (They may be 
broken for other reasons, but not that.)

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/