[Usability]Re: Nautilus Preference Proposal (screenshots too!!!!)

[Dave Bordoley <bordoley msu edu>]

On Tue, 2002-10-15 at 19:06, Dave Camp wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-10-15 at 17:59, bordoley msu edu wrote:
>  
> > In addition, we'd like to consider moving the nautilus preferences out of 
> > nautilus and into the control center.
> 
> I don't have a particularly strong preference either way.  I don't think
> moving it to the control center would be a particularly bad idea.
> 

I've talked to seth about this. He had mentioned that there are positive
and negatives to making these prefs global (ie. in the control center).
I obviously lean towards moving these prefs out of nautilus and making
them desktop preferences as opposed to nautilus prefs. But i think we
should discuss it and see what the pros and cons are first.

> 
> This all makes sense, except that it seems like people might want to
> decide on hidden and backup files separately.

I don't feel particularly strong either way. Our idea was that these
preferences basically expose the user to "special" files and that the
number of backup files tends to be so limited that if we are going to
expose users to special files that we might as well expose them to all
special files. After all to a general user unfamiliar with the "." and
"~" conventions, backup files are hidden, so from outside the familiar
unix blinders (as seth would say) backup files really are hidden files. 

 
> A lot of people seem to want to turn off the desktop drawing.  These
> people are usually power users, but it's often the first thing they want
> to turn off (they notice it quickly).
> 
> On the other hand, it strikes me as the kind of pref that could confuse
> the hell out of a novice user. 
> 

Exactly, and advance users should be completely comfortable using the
gconf editor to change these prefs. As I said I'm not proposing removing
the pref altogther, just removing it from the visible ui. These prefs
could be added to hacker tweak ui dialog if anyone decides to write one,
but for the general ui they seem to stick out like a sore thumb.

> 
> I think executable text files is probably better, given the fact that
> there are Scripts elsewhere in the UI.  This preference is in fact
> ignored when executing nautilus scripts. 
> 

Fine, I just wanted to present the option. I have no problem with
reverting back to using "executable text files."

> 
> How should a misbehaving side pane be dealt with?  It would be possible
> to add a "Disable this side pane" option to the dialog that is shown
> when a view fails, but how would a user add it back?
> 

I'm not completely sure. Is this a real problem right now? I don't have
a deep technical understanding so I can't comment on that level, but you
have to admit, these prefs do seem kind of hokey. Perhaps a side panel
would be disable until nautilus is restarted??? Lets talk more and work
something out i guess.

dave