Re: [Usability] Proposal for Spatial Nautilus: Shelf Location

[Thorsten Seitz <thorsten seitz web de>]

On Saturday 10 April 2004 18:49, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, Thorsten Seitz wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 18:41:35 +0200
> > From: Thorsten Seitz <thorsten seitz web de>
> > To: usability gnome org
> > Subject: [Usability] Proposal for Spatial Nautilus: Shelf Location
> >
> > Once upon a time I wrote a file browser for BeOS which had the concept of
> > a "Shelf". When thinking about it in the context of spatial Nautilus it
> > occurred to me that it could be generalized and integrated very smoothly
> > with the notion of spatiality. So I'd like to make the following
> > proposal:
>
> I have read about the shelf idea before, sounds interesting
> I did a quick search on Freshmeat for projects that implement the concept
> [...]
> Interestingly it is sometimes described as an enhanced clipboard, with
> mulitiple file objects on it.
> Have you considered how the Shelf might be differnt from a window
> showing a clipboard containing mulitple objects/files/scraps?

When compared with the clipboard of the Window File Explorer there is the 
following difference (in addition to the Shelf being able to hold multiple 
objects): in Windows I must decide whether to move or copy a file when 
putting it on the clipboard; with the Shelf I decide whether to move or copy 
an object when dragging it from the Shelf (and I can repeat this action 
(because the object doesn't vanish from the Shelf!), thereby doing multiple 
copies or correcting a wrong move action for example).

> > Imagine a special URI location shelf:/// which is commonly called "Shelf"
> > in the UI.
> [...]
> I am not in anyway excluding the idea of the Shelf creating a new URI is
> an absolute non-starter.  I can look up the reasons previously given if
> you want 

That would be very nice! I'd very much like to read/understand those reasons.

> leave the implementation details until later.  I hope I have managed to
> politely express my strong objection.

Yes :-)

Thank you very much for your comments!

-Thorsten