[Usability]Re: functionality only avaliable in the nautilus sidebar

[Dave Bordoley <bordoley msu edu>]

On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 15:03, MArk Finlay wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> What I miss when it's off is the ability to make mime-type-executions
> (eg. 'Open with Gedit' on a text file) on the current file or directory.
> 
<snip/>
> .....................................................................
> 
> It get's slightly more complicated when you are viewing a folder. The
> problem is that the File menu is used for both the current folder and
> any files that might be selected in the current folder. I use single
> click and didn't know until a second ago what those greyed out Options
> in the File menu were for. Turned out they are for working with the
> currently selected files, while the items above them are for working on
> the currently selected folder. 
> 
> Should we not have two sepporate menus for these? IMHO the file items
> don't belong and the menu should be called 'Folder' instead of 'File'
> and should related only to the current folder.[1] It's very windowsish
> to have a file menu and throw everything into it. It might be breaking
> the mould a bit, but to me it would make much more sense to have two
> sepporate menus.
> 

This is slightly tricky. Nautilus' current menu style assumes that
container objects (like folders) set the first menu item name to that of
contained object (files). So in a sense adding an open with.=> menu for
the current view to the file menu is potentially confusing because:

a) There already exists an open with menu item for selected files.
b) items in the file menu are suppose to act on the contained object
(files), not the container (the folder).

Those on the ui team that support maintaining such a ui have stated that
folder specific menu entries can be placed in the view menu.

I have a mockup of a folder as you have described that uses the "folder"
menu to do actions upon the current folder, while using the edit menu
for actions upon the contained objects.

http://www.msu.edu/~bordoley/file-manager.glade

Oh i should mention that to my best knowledge os2/warp used "folder" as
well.

dave