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Re: [Usability] Efficient navigation in nautilus

Kalle Vahlman wrote:


Christian Schneider kirjoitti 27.05.2004 kello 11:01:
The first thing is when I am in a folder and press Ctrl-L I get the location dialog. But the current location is selected. So when I try to navigate based on my current position I have to enter "right" and "/". 

This might sound silly, but why not navigate with the open folder
if you want to navigate further down _that_ path?

I've always considered the location dialog as a sort of a shortcut to
navigate to a folder that you don't use that often and/or is not part
of your collection of shortcuts, not a primary way to navigate.
For normal user operations like opening a document or listening to music I have created shortcuts on the desktop. So there are only like two or three levels to navigate. In that case navigation with the mouse 
is the best thing.
Where we need better effectivity are the cases where you navigate for admin purposes. There are often quite deep paths that are not so easily navigated with the mouse.
What exactly do you mean by "navigate with the open folder". Do you mean with the mouse or keyboard? I just tried a little to navigate with keyboard inside the folder by typing the first letters and then enter. Works quite well but first thing is the screen is cluttered with windows quite fast and the second thing is I donīt have a good overview how the current path looks like. 


The next thing is when I want to activate completion. When there is
only one completion I see it selected and can use it by typing "right"
on the cursor pad. One problem abbout that is that the cursor pad is
too far away. I canīt write fast when I have to move my fingers away
from the 10 fingers writing position. (Although I donīt really write with
10 fingers ;-) but I think you know what I mean.


I've always thought that moving my hand to the mouse from the
keyboard is something like "mildly annoying", but to say that the cursor
pad (a part of the keyboard, I presume) is too far to be usable...
Words escape me :)

Hehe I was just comparing to bash ... and bash is more effective here.
btw. I also canīt think of anyone who would need the tab key for switching input elements inside the dialog. 

-o/ Me!
Do you really use this? Tab is ok inside a larger dialog when no mouse is at hand but when there is only an input field and cancel and ok button the keys esc and enter do a much better job. 


If you want open you can type enter if you want to cancel
you select esc.


Yes, you can type in the username and press enter but then the
password field was left empty... The tab-movement is really really
needed for the widget navigation, there's no way it could be disabled.
And for consistency, it needs to work averywhere.
Just like I said, in more complicated dialogs tab switching is useful and neeed. But in our case it is not necessary. When the input field would be inside a panel applet, would tab then be ok? 


Please not another button! ;)
You are probably right. So the search bar is probably not such a good idea after all ;-) 

Or perhaps merging nautilus and mozilla so it would search google as well
:P
Or port the google browser tool bar to linux ;-) So your searching will even improve the quality of spam you get ;-)) 




That doesn't sound like a file manager, that sounds like a search window.
Which would make much more sense, since file manger is for managing
files, not to search for them.

Yes ... I am not so sure about this search function. Things like
that do not work well in the spatial mode.


And a search bar that alters the content of a window works? Think not.
It is not perfect but I really like the quick searching in mozilla mail and use this very often. As it searches while you type it is very intuitive too.
I just searched inside the available applets if anything like a navigation applet is already available. The thing that comes most close to it seems to be the command line applet. Not that it would be that effective like it is but perhaps I could try to expand it.
Is nautilus remote controllable? If I program an applet then is there any easy way to open folders and perhaps even control what they show (like a filter)? The other thing I would need is some kind of events fired by nautilus when the user switches the folder window so the bar in the panel could follow.
Are those things already available? I am not experienced in gnome programming but I would really like to toy around with my idea.
btw. I have one other idea for a keyboard shortcut in nautilus. What about using something like Ctrl-t to open the userīs default terminal app with the path set to the current folder. This is surely very easy to implement and every admin will thank you ;-) It would also be nice to have a shortcut in gnome-terminal to open a nautilus folder for the current path. We really need to find a way to end this old debate about command line vs graphical interfaces. As an admin I would like to be able to use both and switch between them very easily. 

Christian Schneider
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