Re: [PATCH] Translate the "Templates" folder

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 10:08 +0200, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 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.

"Any app" might not be a gnome app at all. Thinking we can control what
API is used for every app the user might want to run is madness. Real
people run non-gnome apps to solve real problems.

> As for hiding directories, we do it all the time: that's what dot-files
> and dot-directories are for.  A Templates directory is a "configuration"
> directory; you place template files in there in order to let them show
> up inside the Templates sub-menu.  If we can access Templates directly,
> the user won't notice if those files are in $HOME/Templates,
> $HOME/.Templates or $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus/Templates; instead, by
> providing a "shortcut hiding" we could set up an infrastructure for
> system administrators to create a /var/lib/$HOSTNAME/Templates, which is
> exported through NFS/SMB/whatever, and have a network-wide templates
> directory.  Right now, there's no way of doing this without using black
> magic, or patching Nautilus.  Also, this way we could simply translate
> the shortcut file instead of translating the directory.

The Templates folder is very much *not* a configuration folder. It was
explicitly designed to be a "normal" folder that the user easily see and
control, allowing it to be useful to them instead of being full of
system crap that you don't actually use and can't remove. All sort of
"magic" to try to make a non-normal folder appear more normal is bound
to fail, so we just use normal folders.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a fast talking gay card sharp from the 'hood. She's a sarcastic 
tempestuous detective from Mars. They fight crime!