Re: Nautilus vs gnome-shell and the future

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Thu, 2009-12-03 at 17:04 +0100, Cosimo Cecchi wrote:

> While I completely agree about enabling browser mode by default,  I'm
> not completely sold on Nautilus not drawing the desktop by default: 

As a start, here is what the gnome-shell design docs say on the desktop:

        Used for both ephemeral, and working set data finding and reminding. Given time, the
        constant stream of things to do, the constant remainder that does not get done, and the
        unwillingness to categorize and archive manually, and the fact that the solution doesn't
        scale (due to being spatially bound) results in the system breaking down. On top of this - so
        to speak - is the problem that this data lives underneath all of the current activities on the
        computer and is therefore very difficult to reach. Which also tends to reduce its
        effectiveness for finding and reminding. It also doesn't provide any form of prioritization.
        
        In the Shell design, the "desktop" folder should no longer be presented as if it resides
        behind all open windows. We should have another way of representing ephemeral and
        working set objects.
        
        The reminding function of the desktop is really only available immediately after login. Once
        any activities are started its effectiveness is dramatically diminished. Starting the Journal
        automatically at login will have a equivalent effect and have the advantage of being easier
        to access later.
        
        Trashcan Target
        
        The need for a trashcan target is greatly diminished by removing the desktop folder from the
        computer background. However, to remove the need for it one needs to go a step farther
        and drop the use of the spatial file management (ie. the desktop metaphor) altogether. It
        will be necessary to build a Trash capability into the Journal Summary and history archive
        that are described in a later section. If we need a metaphor at all then perhaps a better one
        is to "forget" the object.


>      * even with many applications opened, the desktop is just one
>         click (or one keystroke) away from you (Ctrl+Alt+D or the
>         "Show Desktop" applet). 

Yes, its quick to reach, but so is the activities overview (press the
windows key or move the mouse to the top-left corner. It all depends on
why you want to reach the desktop. If its for something like launching
an app/location then doing that via the activities overview is as
efficient as the desktop (and its an advantage imho to only have one
consistent way to do this). So, this argument is only valid if you're
doing something you can't do on the activities overview.

>       * it's a very big space to save things. If we're going to have
>         something like a file stack in gnome-shell, we should make it
>         sure it has the right amount of space. For instance, I find it
>         confusing to use the stacked "Downloads" icon on the OSX dock,
>         as it becomes just too messy and out-of-control when the number
>         of files is high. You can always clean up your desktop instead
>         when there are too many things on it, just like you'd do with
>         a real one :) 

It is very big, but its often covered and its limited in space (and thus
doesn't scale). Its also problematic in that its fixed size changes when
the resolution changes meaning you might "lose" files when that
happens. 

The main advantage to the desktop is really that its a logical default
storage location for starting something and for temporary things that is
easy to reach. If we remove the desktop the likely place that things
like this would be done is the home directory, but thats not as nice as
its full of stuff thats always there, so you can't easily clean it up or
get an overview of only the stuff you've temporarily created.

>       * orthogonal to the previous one, there are some items which are
>         very handy to have on the desktop anyway, for instance, newly
>         mounted volume icons.

Ideally it should be as easy to reach these with gnome-shell as the
desktop, and if its not we should instead fix it. Using the activities
overview its pretty easy to reach a mounted volume as they are listed on
the left. 

However, for the case of a newly mounted volume we should probably
integrate with the shell notification system so that plugging in a cd
will show you some notification that this is now availible, letting you
quickly click on it to open the mounted location.

> I agree with this; as I see it, the g-s search is something like
> Spotlight's dropdown menu; if you click a button, a nautilus windows
> would open with the full results/set of actions you can take. If
> you're going to integrate metadata more into Nautilus, I'd not be scared to
> see something more than bare filesystem hits there in Nautilus' search
> window, though a good UI for that would be mandatory.

I'm always worried about adding non-file things to the nautilus views. A
lot of people has historically used gnome-vfs modules + nautilus to
create "lists" of things (fonts, themes and whatnot). This is almost
always a bad idea. All of the nautilus UI is specialized at showing
files and their properties. And the operations available on items expect
them to generally act like normal files. Adding other types of objects
always leads to strange behaviour due to this. (Not to mention that a
custom list dialog could contain the special features needed to make
listing the new type of object better.)

Additionally I think its kinda unexpected to open the file management
application and have its search return a preference dialog. Especially
with the new focus on "file management" rather than being a shell.

However, it would be cool for instance to have the search results in
gnome-shell have a link in the "files" section of the results that
opened up a nautilus search.

It would also be nice if the search result picked up things like custom
icons and emblems from nautilus. And if the files had context menus with
things like "open with other...", and "show in file manager" operations.

> I've always liked the idea of a file well, but I'd rather see this as
> some sort of "temporary stack" where you put all the resources you
> need
> to accomplish a task (maybe with an option to save them, and associate
> it with a shell activity/workspace), rather than a permanent
> file-system
> folder.

What do you think of my proposal about piles?

> By the way, if we're going to stop drawing the desktop, what would be
> drawn on it and who would be responsible for that?

If nautilus just stops this then the default will be for
gnome-settings-daemon to set the desktop background and for X to render
it. However, if gnome-shell instead managed it we could do nice things
like having different backgrounds for different workspaces.

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl redhat com            alexander larsson gmail com 
He's a shy Catholic cop on the run. She's a plucky Bolivian safe cracker 
operating on the wrong side of the law. They fight crime!