Re: [PATCH] Translate the "Templates" folder

[Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>]

Hi,

On Fri, 2005-10-21 at 23:22 -0200, Matthew Thomas wrote:

> >> 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.

He keeps his own $HOME on a USB key - which is a non-trivial operation
even today - and yet he doesn't know what GNOME is?  I find it hard to
believe such a crafted example, but I'll go on reading.

>  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?

Not only he expects that Windows XP and Linux works with the same
layout, he evidently doesn't know how to search for a file.  This
(poorly) crafted example begins to show its flaws.

> 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.)

Try and find your desktop folder under another OS partition with Linux.
Does this means that GNOME should use the layout of those other
operating systems for its folders?  And, by the way, which schema should
GNOME follow? 

The only important thing is that the file is present, and its up to
date; where is located - if you are accessing it from *another*
operating system - is not important.

Using shortcuts, by the way, guarantees that plugging the USB stick into
another computer with GNOME would make Nautilus automagically recognise
the shortcuts thereby located, and present the user with the same layout
he used on his own machine; he then will be able to access the
"Templates" directory on his USB stick without ever knowing where it's
actually located.

Ciao,
 Emmanuele.

-- 
Emmanuele Bassi - <ebassi gmail com>
Log: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net