Re: [Usability] An idea for Nautilus new OO-based UI

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 11:02, Joao Victor wrote:
> Hello folks,
> 
> I've read that Nautilus is now gonna feature an OO-based UI design, and i find it
> interesting. However, i think this feature could be better implemented, so i'm sending
> this email to discuss that, and see what you guys think about it.

> 
> With the new design, everytime a user clicks on a folder, it is going to be opened in a
> new window. While there are some good points about this behavior, there are also some bad
> points about it, in my opinion, such as:
> 
>  * Opening a new window is a slow process. Users that haven't got the lastest CPU will
> find this feature "bloat".

One of the major reasons of going with a spatial/OO design is that
opening new windows *won't* be slow or bloated.  It'll make it very very
fast and snappy.  (Or *should*, anyways.)

> 
>  * If you've got too many subdirectories (which is common nowadays), you'll end up with
> your desktop full of Nautilus' windows, which is not very nice to the eyes, and also
> consumes lots of RAM.

Again, less resource consumption is a goal of the spatial/OO design.

> 
> Given these problems, i think there is a good, and very simple solution to this: use
> tabs.
> 
> Instead of creating a new window everytime the user opens a folder, it could create a new
> tab. This way you wouldn't have lots of Nautilus' windows opened - you'd have only the
> main window, and the tabs are inside it -, and creating a new tab is much faster than
> creating a new window.

No.  no no no.  Please no.  Tabs are awful - you can't switch between
them using normal alt-tab or the taskbar (i.e., you have to learn,
remove, and constantly use two completely different ways to switch
between views), they *force* you to keep only one window visible (tell
me exactly how drag-and-drop will work then, hmm?), and otherwise are
just a huge UI wart that people make use of in *way* too many
applications because either they can't be bothered to learn the WM, or
(in enough cases) the WM isn't powerful enough to organize windows well.

If I had my way (which I most surely do not ~,^ ) tabs would be
expressly forbidden in all apps for MDI usage.  Even the popular tabbed
browser - a few good WM changes would remove the need there (i.e., more
powerful and usable task grouping.)

If your only reason to using tabs is to cut down on resource usage, you
have fallen prey to two very common mistakes in application
development.  Namely, (1) solving a non-existent problem with (2) a
solution that's counter-productive to the app's goals (ease of use in
Nautilus' case).

> 
> So, that's it... what do you think about it?
> 
> Thanks,
> Victor.
> 
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-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.