[Usability]Re: the Nautilus context menu

[Andrew Sobala <andrew sobala net>]

On Wed, 2002-11-13 at 23:01, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 07:32:21PM +0000, Andrew Sobala wrote:
> 

<snip>

> > b) it's inconsistent with the rest of GNOME, and every (?) other
> > operating system out there.
> 
> As said before, Cut/Copy/Paste on files is inconsistent with the same action
> on other things.
> 
> MacOS, to my knowledge, does not provide Cut/Copy/Paste of files; I think
> it only allow mouse-based DnD or tranfers by dialogs.
> 

I just checked. It uses Cut/Copy/Paste.

> Pick Up and Drop were present on OS/2 versions 2 through 4, at least.
> 
> 
> > It doesn't seem worth alienating skilled computer users in an effort to
> > make file management seem as simple as pie - which it isn't.
> 
> At this point, you've lost me. A series of questions:
>   What do you think file management is?

OK, mine was a weak comment.

> 
> 
> > The bug's probably still open somewhere.
> > 
> > > 4) Rename used to be afforded by clicking on the label.
>
> That sounds like the bug was in the implementation

Yup.

> > > The menus, without #82162 fixed, would be:
> > > +------------------+
> > > | Open With       >| -------------- +---------------+
> > > +------------------+                | <the default> |
> > > | Pick Up          |                +---------------+
> > > | Drop            >| - +--------+   | <other        |
> > > +------------------+   | Here   |   |   openers>    |
> > > | Move to Trash    |   | Copy   |   |               |
> > > | Delete           |   | Link   |   +---------------+
> > > +------------------+   +--------+
> > > | Properties       |   | Cancel |
> > > +------------------+   +--------+
> > > 
> > 
> > Presumably "Cancel" is if you don't want to "hold" whatever you "picked
> > up" any more. Really, this has the same problem as cut/paste. If you
> > "pick up" something, and then go and do something else, where does the
> > file go? Answer: it hasn't gone anywhere. So "Cancel" is just a
> > non-functional menu item :-)
> 
> You're the first person to mention that to me and I hadn't noticed the
> error myself. Indeed, it makes sense that if you've picked something
> up from one place it is no longer there. But not even DnD shows this!
> Something is rotten here.
> 
> In OS/2, the last item on the Drop menu is actually "Cancel Drag".
> Maybe that's better.
> 
> One thing that Pick Up and Drop (as implemented on OS/2) does which
> Cut/Copy/Paste (on any system) does not is that it shows an image
> next to the cursor like it would for mouse-dragging.
> 
> Here is an important difference between Cut/Copy/Paste and Pick Up/Drop:
> 
> With Cut/Copy/Paste, you are committed to a particular action well before
> completing it. If you have Cut and when going to paste you realize you
> actually wanted to Copy, you have to either go back and Paste where you 
> Cut or you complete the action and Copy back to the original location.
> 

Not really. If you cut a file, it's still there. Cut/Copy/Paste is a
2-choice action. The Cut/Copy says what you want to do with the file,
and Paste says where you want to do it. If you Copy a file, then realise
you wanted to Cut it, you can choose Cut on that file before going and
pasting it because the action only occurs on the paste step. You don't
have to complete the action before changing your mind.

> With Pick Up/Drop, you can defer the decision until you complete the action.
> 

So it's an inverted Cut/Copy/Paste. Instead of:

[Choose source file and what action to do] -> [Select location and
action takes place]

which is [Cut/Copy] -> [Paste]

you want

[Choose source file] -> [Select location and what action to do and
action takes place]

which is [Pick up] -> [Various drops]

Why is this arrangement advantageous? It means people have to relearn
their file management, because the choice is made after rather than
during source-selection, but I can't see what problems this solves.

This is why cut/copy/paste is sort-of consistent at the moment; the
action choice takes place during source-selection rather than during
target-selection. And although the time of action is different to, say,
editing text files (that's unavoidable since file management is a
one-step action rather than two-step action), pick up/drop has the same
delayed-action but compounds the issue by having action-choice at a
different point.

So as we said above, the problem cut/copy/paste and pick up/drop share
is that a picked-up file or cut file doesn't go anywhere when it's cut
or picked up. It stays on the file system. I think a proper resolution
would be to show the user this.

So something like when a file is cut, it "greys out" (like on Windows)
and a greyed out icon of the file appears in the panel. This shows the
weird limbo state that it's in before pasting/dropping. Then when it is
pasted, the icon becomes solid in the paste location. This solution
solves the cut problem; it doesn't discriminate against copy/paste where
the limbo icon actually ends up in 2 places at once. Maybe cut would
show the limbo icon in a greyed-out state to show that it's
half-on-the-clipboard-and-half-on-the-file-system, and copy would show
the limbo icon in a solid state to show that a full copy of the icon is
on the file system.

> 
> > > With #82162 fixed:
> > > 1) s/Open With/Open/
> > > 2) The Open item could be activated without showing the submenu.
> > > 3) <the default> would not need to be moved to the top as it
> > >    would be indicated by a some icon next to it.
> > > 4) Drop could be activated without showing the submenu.
> > >    (I don't know which drop should be the default.)
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > Greg Merchan
> > 
> > -- 
> > Andrew
> > 
> > -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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> > 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Greg Merchan
> 
-- 
Andrew

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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!O M V-
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