Re: [Usability]File renaming/extensions

[Nicolįs Rucks <rucks chasque apc org>]

From two diferents point of view I think extension hidding should NOT 
be the default.
1) Unix does not depend on extensions.
As all you now an executable could be a text file or binary and all of 
this are executable. They will have or do not have an extension. If 
using extensions for identifying file tipes is good or bad does not 
depend on Gnome, and is not the idea of this discusion. I think hidding 
an extension could make confusions in some users and does not help.
2) It could be a security risk.
On other plataforms like Windows (I do not know Mac Os X) many troyan 
horses use the two extensions trick so the user may think that the file 
is from a different type of what it really is. For example if you get in 
windows a file with the name Dummy.txt.exe you will see Dummy.txt as the 
filename when extension hidding is active and think that it is an 
inoffensive text file (I know, if extensions are hidden you will notice 
that it has two extensions when you see one, but the risk exists and 
clicking on those files is really common). All antivirus newsletters I 
know recomends to turn off extension hidding. So I think, why sould whe 
add something to Gnome that coud be dangerous ? Is to anoying to have 
three or four characters appended to the end of the filename ??

Nico

David Lazaro wrote:

> > Please, please, no
> >    
>
>  
>
> > i agree... please NO!
> >    
>
> <joke>
> Uhm... Am I pointing to you with a gun, guys? I would like to see your
> extensions taken away from your view not your money nor your lives... ;)
> </joke>
>
> Well, it is clear to me that you don't like the idea for yourselves :)
> but I will reword my proposal:
>
>   * Extension hiding should be the DEFAULT behaviour. *
>
> Why? First, I can't see any problem with them being hiding away. I have
> used other operating systems with this feature and haven't noticed any
> major drawback. And what is more important, users seem to love it;
> either Mac OS X 10.1 or Windows users I have heard a lot of positive
> reactions from my (not computer engineer friends) when Windows 95
> offered the feature for the first time or when Apple brought back this
> with Mac OS X 10.1.
>
> Second, well, it seems a very desirable end default behaviour and all of
> you should be able to turn it off from Nautilus' preferences. Now,
> that's easy, isn't it?
>
> Also, from a technical standpoint, the .extension thing is getting passč
> this days. Great minds are raising against this nonsense of having file
> names glued to data formats. Why is data type so "special" to be slapped
> next to the file name? Well, date and time stamps at least have they own
> space in a warm and comfortable i-node. Why file types can't? Ok, this
> is getting a bit satirical so I'll leave it to greater thinkers than
> myself to explain.
>
> * If you are interesting in current developments that may obsolete many
> granted limitations of current filesystems go to http://www.namesys.com/
> and read about their current work and "new visions".
>
> * If you would like a very good (IMHO) rant about metadata handling and
> filename-extension nonsense bring yourselves to
> http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q3/metadata/metadata-1.html. and read;
> then think; then write again to this mailing list, because I think that
> this a question worth discussing.
>
> A user test would be helpful, too. Now, taking that every major player
> (Apple and Microsoft, that is) has taken the same approach... I think it
> will be very easy to get right a prediction of how the final result.
>
> Cheers and sorry for not including this before, it wasn't (and isn't) my
> intention to troll in this mailing list,
>
> David
>
>
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