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

[Glen Gray <glen netnoteinc com>]

On Tue, 2002-10-15 at 22:59, bordoley msu edu wrote:
> In addition, we'd like to consider moving the nautilus preferences out of 
> nautilus and into the control center. This change would make nautilus more 
> of a desktop component, similar to the panel, rather than a standalone 
> application. Also in the star trek future, some of these preferences could 
> in theory apply to a nautilus based file selector, so this is something to 
> at least consider.
>  
This had been proposed as a possible feature change for 2.0 but was
decided to be post 2.0. I'd like to see this make it to 2.2

>  
> proposal:
> ========================
> 1. Views Category
> ------------------

Looks good

> 2. Appearance Category
> ----------------------
> Most likely nautilus will no longer have themes in 2.2, so we did not 
> consider this preference category in our design.
> 

I take it this is the new Icon Theme stuff that will affect the whole
desktop (menus and all) as opposed to just naulitus ?

> 3. Windows Category
> -------------------
> We removed the "windows" category in our design. The new window behavior 
> preference is moved into the new "files and folders" category (icon and 
> list views in the current design). 
> 
> We recommend that the "new window display" preferences be removed in
> favor of honoring the most recently selected setup from the view menu of 
> the main window (ie. if a user selects to show the toolbar in the current 
> window, all subsequent windows will show the toolbar as well). Galeon2 uses 
> this method to select which window elements to display and it seems to work 
> well. As always, we welcome comments. 
>  
Sounds right.

> 4. Desktop and Trash category
> -----------------------------
> We removed this category.
> 
> The "desktop" preferences are removed. These preferences seem to fall under 
> the crack options category in our opinion. While I personally am a huge fan 
> of "use home folder as desktop," from a pure usability standpoint I think 
> nautilus should only have one desktop dir (at least in the user visible 
> ui). In addition the "Use nautilus to draw the desktop" preference is really 
> a power user tweak preference that shouldn't be included in the ui (i'm not 
> aware of any other desktop shell/filemanager that includes such a 
> preference). We recommend removing these preferences from the user visible 
> ui, but retaining them as hidden gconf preferences for the power user in all 
> of us. :)
> 
I agree, it could be confusing to newer users. Most people live with the
default. And those that dare to try "Use Home Folder as Desktop" rarely
go back :). Without wanting to get a flame war going or rehashing one
that happend pre-2.0, could we get feed back from the usability team on
what is felt to be the best option for the default ? Having said that a
thought just popped into my mind regarding the freedesktop.org proposals
for the desktop dir. Perhaps HP could give his views on this
controversial feature.

> The trash behavior prefs are moved to the "files and folders" category. 
> 

Good, good.

> 5. Files and Folders category (currently Icon and List Views)
> ------------------------------------------------------------- 
> First we generalized the title to "Files and Folders." This title is more 
> descriptive of the affect these preferences have on user interactions.
> 
> The "Click Behavior" subcategory is generalized to "Behavior." This 
> subcategory now includes both the "click" preferences and "open each file 
> and folder in a new window" preference.
>  
> The "Executable Text Files" category is renamed "Scripts." This change was 
> prompted by an existing nautilus bug report. I do not feel strong about the 
> title either way, however the word script does appear in other parts of the 
> nautilus ui. These prefs remain unchanged.
>  

Not sure on this one for the same reasons Dave mentioned. Perhaps the
usability team could give guidance on this ?

> As mentioned before the "Hidden files" and "Backup files" preferences are 
> moved into the views menu and are combined into a single preference. 
> 
Can't see where this was mentioned before. Perhaps a previous mail
thread ?

IIRC, there was discussions to have this put as a view option that could
be blanket applied as the default but changed for each window. e.g. I
don't want to see "." or "~" files in general. But I drill down into a
particular dir and can't see what I want so I select "Show Hidden Files"
from the menu/popup menu for the current window. 

Now this opened a can of worms I seem to remember about whether we
should save this info for this dir or if it should be transiant etc.
I've no particular preference. As a user I generally wouldn't want to
see all the . and ~ files unless I was looking for something
specifically. So if it was saved chances are I'd want to turn it off
again for the view after I'd found what I was looking for.

> The "special flags in Properties dialog" preference is removed in our 
> design. This should just be enabled as the permission tab of 
> the properties window already requires the user to understand unix 
> permissions. We see no reason for a preference.
> 
Makes sense.

> 6. Sidepanes category
> --------------------------------
> This category is removed. With the new sidebar design the tabs preferences 
> seem out of place. We may want to include them as hidden preferences for 
> those tweakers who may gain from minor speed improvements, but this doesn't 
> really warrant inclusion in the ui. The tree view preference was moved to 
> the "views" category.
> 
Never really fan of the Sidepane so no strong prefs either way, it's
usually off for me.

> 7. Icon Captions Category
> -------------------------
> Same...
>  
> 8. Previews Category (currently Performance)
> --------------------------------------------
> We renamed the category to "Previews" as these preferences more directly 
> affect how nautilus previews files. The effect on performance is a side 
> effect. This dialog remains unchanged with the exception that option menus 
> are used in place of the radio buttons (looked cleaner to us).
> 
Much better.

> 
> Here are some mockups of our proposal. Its not quite complete (it missing 
> mneumonics for example). 
>  
> http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/nautilus_prefs/Screenshot-Prefs-1.png
> http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/nautilus_prefs/Screenshot-Prefs-2.png
> http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/nautilus_prefs/Screenshot-Prefs-3.png
> http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/nautilus_prefs/Screenshot-Prefs-4.png
> 
I'm with jdub on this one. That theme was pretty bad ;p

Glen