Re: [Usability] Efficient navigation in nautilus

[Christian Schneider <c schneider scram de>]

> > What do you think about the possibility of opening the spatial folders 
> > and showing the matches there?
> >    
>
> Like opening all possible completions as Nautilus windows at once?
> How to trigger that? But I don't think anybody would be happy with that.
>
>  
No I did not mean to open several windows at one time. I will try to
describe the scenario with an example. Letīs imagine we start at / and
want to go to /usr/local/bin

I type Ctrl-L and the path input opens. Then I type /u Tab. The
completion is /usr and the /usr window opens,
but my input field stays open.

Then I type l and Tab Tab. Inside the /usr folder I see the completions
lib, libexec and local. I type o and Tab. The only completion is
/usr/local and the local Folder opens. I type b Tab. The only completion
is bin and the bin Folder opens.

So I can navigate just as fast and as easy as in bash with the visual
help and comfort of nautilus.
My suggestion to place the input field alone and in the lower left
corner is to leave space on the screen for the folders to open.

(see
http://www.liquid-reality.de/main/interests/nautilus_nav/screenshot1.png)

You could even complete the example by typing a complete pathname for a
document and type enter at the end to open the corresponding application
and open the file in it.

btw. To help clean the screen of folders at the end it would be great to
have a hotkey that closes all nautilus windows. In the example above a
preferences setting could trigger if the windows higher up on the path
stay open or are closed just like when navigating with middle click.
It would also be great to have the Ctrl-L hotkey available anytime. Even
when I am not in a nautilus window.

I am sure this kind of navigation could speed up finding files by a
factor of at least 3 to 5 compared to navigating with the mouse.
Especially when like in bash you know what you have to type and when to
hit Tab from experience. I can type the above /usr/local/bin in bash in
about 1-2 seconds. The nice thing is that a novice user can start with
mouse alone and learn the faster keyboard method when he gets more
experience.

A plus would be that you can use the system to search inside a folder.
Letīs imagine I have currently opened the folder /usr. I hite Ctrl-L and
type l Tab Tab. Then I see only local, lib and libexec instead of the
whole folder contents.

Christian Schneider