[Usability]Re: Nautilus preferences proposal

[David Emory Watson <dwatson cs ucr edu>]

On Sun, 2002-04-28 at 15:59, Dave Bordoley wrote:
> The problem is that nautilus isn't a web browser, it could be, I really
> really hope it can be one, but right now it's just not. The primary
> purpose of nautilus is a file browser. 

My conception of nautilus: it is a framework for viewing things.  The
fact that things in UNIX are "files" is not important.  What is
important is that nautilus allows the user to view and access data.  The
location of that data (i.e. local or remote) should not be relevant.

> One day it would be nice, if we could integrate the excellent web
> browsing features of galeon into nautilus. But i don't see that
> happening for a long time.

Fair enough, but I still don't this (i.e. nautilus's lack of web
browsing ability) as a serious enough usability problem to go and start
ripping out features.

> perhaps a solution to avoiding the misconception by users that nautilus
> is a web browser is to turn off the location bar by default. This may
> clear things up a little since it will resemble macos finder a little
> bit more.

I use the location bar quite often (tab completion is great! :) so I
would be generally opposed to this idea.  Another (easily fixable)
problem would be that the location bar is currently the only way to know
what directory your viewing in (e.g. think about the case where you have
multiple directories all named foo)

> dave
> 
> On Sun, 2002-04-28 at 15:47, David Emory Watson wrote:
> 
> > 
> > While I can understand Alex's thinking on the importance of $HOME, I
> > doubt if new users will agree.  In my experience, every new user I've
> > put on GNOME invariably tries to use nautilus as a web browser (this is
> > probably due to their experience with Explore).  So for them, nautilus
> > is a web browser and home is a homepage (location, whatever).
> > -- 
>