Re: [Usability]File renaming/extensions

[David Lazaro <david lazaro eresmas net>]

On Tue, 2002-08-20 at 15:00, Daniel Borgmann wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-08-20 at 11:55, David Lazaro wrote:
> > > What do you think?
> > 
> > That you are right about this being slightly wasteful. What about hiding
> > extensions (like everybody else, I must add)?
> 
> No, please not. ;)

:)

> Seriously, I thought about this but decided not to suggest it for
> several reasons.
> One of them was, that I remembered that I always disabled it in Windows
> so if I would disable it, it would not solve the problem for me. :) Of
> course it could be combined with another solution, but so much trouble
> and coding and crack for what?

I am afraid that you are not a typical user, and that is a compliment.
;)

> As someone already said, file extensions aren't really a Unix thing
> anyway, we don't have silly .exe files for example. File extensions are
> mostly informative. If you see a piece of paper icon, would you
> immediately know weither that's a plaintext file or a word processor
> file? File endings help to quickly gather information about the file,
> but they aren't really required luckily. For example I could call my
> textfile mynotes.bak just to remind my self that it's a backup. Not
> because I have to. Cutting the ending wouldn't help at all, it would
> just take this possibility away for me.

Extensions were not necessary in the past. They served the function of
customizable icons. C files have always been .c and .h files since the
first incarnations of Unix. Then you do an ls and you can grasp what
kind of files they were. Makefiles also depend on extensions for they
most complicated tricks. So I am afraid that we must live with them for
a long, long time.

For us, developers, they are natural. But for users that have only used
Mac OS, they aren't. They have always seen the extension in a nice panel
as a four letter code, for example.

Nautilus also depends on extensions. For a strange reason the file
README.it on every Red Hat 7.x x86 disc 1 is recognized as a impulse
tracker file with a nice score pictured on the icon. Not that I think
that the Italian accent isn't musical and very nice... but Nautilus
botches it because it depends on extensions.

> Oh and about the "extensions are a thing of the past" thing, I would
> agree with that but that's exactly why we don't need to hide them. :) If
> they aren't neccessarily used to determine the filetype anymore, there
> is no reason to hide them as they are simply part of the name now. 

Well they are a thing of the past but will have to stay for a good deal
of time due to all the programs that depend on it.

> And I really think that just selecting the filename initially would
> solve the problem quite nicely. It's less prone to bugs and errors and
> nobody will shoot you for it. ;) 

Uhm... Let a user create a README.it file... ;) From past experience
some people will first think that they have created a new song. Truly!

You are preventing possible errors. This is a basic usability principle.

> Or does anyone disagree? If not, I will file a bugreport for it.

I disagree, but keep the bug report, please: it would be nice to hear
more opinions; specially from people with experience on this decisions
like maybe Maciej, Seth or Calum.

Regards,

David