Nautilus 2.29.1 released - change in focus

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

I don't usually do announce mails for Nautilus, (the NEWS file gets
posted on the ftp-release-list anway :) ). However, this release has
some changes that I'd like to point out.

As discussed on the list[1] recently the Nautilus project is going to
make a slight change of focus. Since a long time nautilus has been to a
large extent the "shell" of the Gnome user interface for a lot of
operations, but with the advent of gnome shell we want to make the shell
interface the primary way to interact with the desktop when starting
activities.

This means that when nautilus is started it is more likely to be because
the user wants to do some more advanced file management like
restructuring the directory structure, or copying lots of files, rather
than just locating a file and start working on it. This leads to the
shift in focus which will in turn lead to a few changes in the UI. 

First of all we have switched to browser mode by default (spatial is
still available from the prefs), secondly we have reorganized the
browser UI and added a split view functionality. We're also in
discussions about whether to have nautilus manage the desktop or not,
and if so how it should look.

This is all work in progress and further changes are coming as things
mature. Follow the nautilus and gnome-shell list for further
discussions.

Note that we're not shipping gnome-shell (at least by default) for Gnome
2.30, so it could be considered a bit early to do these changes in
Nautilus. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I want to do these
changes now so that we have enough time to finish and test them before
Gnome 3.0. And, since many distros disable spatial mode by default
anyway its not such a large change.

1)
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2009-December/msg00001.html


-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl redhat com            alexander larsson gmail com 
He's a globe-trotting soccer-playing ex-con She's a sarcastic wisecracking 
mermaid in the wrong place at the wrong time. They fight crime!