Re: [Usability] Re: Nautilus Sendto -- opportunities for generalisation

[Martin Soto <soto informatik uni-kl de>]

Hi everyone!

On Sun, 2004-08-29 at 14:55, Edd Dumbill wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-08-29 at 13:06 +0200, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
... 
> > But there's no point in cluttering context menus either. Where does it 
> > stop? At the moment I have file-roller, rhythmbox and phone-manager 
> > adding unrequested items to that menu. Evolution might add 'send via 
> > e-mail' for each file, F-spot 'add to image library' for each directory, 
> > and I won't be surprised if someday soon I see 'cook in microwave' in my 
> > context menus. ;)
> 
> I don't understand why you're spending so much energy telling me this.
> Let's build it the wrong way and then make it right, rather than not
> build it at all.  All this effort in the discussion is frankly making me
> tired of developing anything at all.  This is what Nat was talking about
> in his GUADEC keynote about not letting our inclination to do things the
> Right Way stop us doing things.
> 
> I don't care that F-Spot has the context item and I don't care that
> gnome-phone-manager does it.  The file manager is unquestionably the
> right place for this functionality.  If it becomes a problem, Nautilus
> maintainers can solve it.

I think I can understand Reinout's point regarding menu option
proliferation, but I guess I can also see Edd's point here. As far as I
understand, all Edd is doing is using a feature of Nautilus, namely the
ability to extend the context menu, to achieve his purposes. As Reinout
already pointed out, many other programs already use, or will soon use
this feature, a fact that may result in menu congestion if you happen to
have a few of them installed.

However, this is not Edd's fault. If at all, it is the fault of the
Nautilus maintainers that thought out and implemented the menu extension
feature. So, even if it would make sense to raise the concern in the
Nautilus mailing lists, I don't think it makes any sense to flame
individual application authors because they make use of the feature (or,
if you're going to do it, at least you should flame them all, instead of
jumping on a single one ;-) 

> Right now, this thread is making me lose the will to carry on.

This would be a very bad consequence of a misguided (but, as far as I
can see, well meant) discussion.

Cheers,

M. S. (now going back to his usual lurker corner)
-- 
Martin Soto <soto informatik uni-kl de>
Universität Kaiserslautern