Re: [Usability] An Attempt at tasks for the FOSD

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003, Julien Olivier wrote:

> Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 14:24:30 +0100
> From: Julien Olivier <julo altern org>
> To: Dave Malcolm <david davemalcolm demon co uk>
> Cc: Mark Finlay <sisob tuxfamily org>, usability gnome org,
>      gtk-devel-list gnome org, hp redhat com
> Subject: Re: [Usability] An Attempt at tasks for the FOSD
>
> > Ocasional by Many (Suggested, more clicks)
> > > * Add a folder to the list of frequent folders
> > > * Create a new folder
> > > * Change settings specific to the file type being used
> > Suggested addition: Toggle whether the filename extension should be
> > hidden or shown.  I believe it should be supplied automatically, in
> > either case.  I believe that the default should be "hidden".
>
> Excuse me if I'm wrong but does GNOME use file extensions at all ? i

Yes.

It is faster for Nautilus to detect by file extension, I believe this is
the default option.

Opening from within a program must be more reliable and really does need
to check more than just the file extension.  If a user has
specifically opened up the application they want the application should do
its very best to open whatever file is thrown at it.

> So, my suggestion is to show the "extension" and not to allow to hide it

The reason to hide the extension is that extensions make it slighly more
awkward to make minor changes to filenames.
Good auto completion and treating '.' as a delimeter/token for easy
keyboard navigation with the arrow keys would somewhat reduce the problem.

Microsoft also have the problem of hidden file extensions allowing users
to be misled into executing malicious files, but I'm sure there is a smart
way to solve this.

- Alan H.