Re: [Usability] Efficient navigation in nautilus

[Kalle Vahlman <zuh luukku com>]

Christian Schneider kirjoitti 28.05.2004 kello 02:02:
> Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> >Christian Schneider kirjoitti 27.05.2004 kello 11:01:
> > > 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.

I think Gnome is targeted towards users, not admins. So it shouldn't
expose admin-like features to normal users that won't need them
(at least not on a daily basis).

> What exactly do you mean by "navigate with the open folder". Do you
> mean with the mouse or keyboard?

I mean that if you have a folder (/foo/bar) open and need to navigate down on that
path (to /foo/bar/baz/nilli), why on earth you should open the location dialog to
do it? At least that was what I understood you were doing...

> >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.

Of course. But I don't think nautilus needs to mimic bash in its behavior.
Use the real thing if you really want to navigate with typing the path
(which actually sounds like a silly thing to do in graphical environment
now that I think about it.)
 
> >>btw. I also can´t 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.

Well, as I have said, it should work the same way in every dialog to be
consitent. You can't have such widespread keys doing different things
in a similar context. You just can't, no matter how much it would help
one particular use-case.

> btw. I have one other idea for a keyboard shortcut in nautilus. What 
> about using something like Ctrl-t to open the user´s default terminal 
> app with the path set to the current folder.

<sarcasm>
...And lets adapt all the other "nifty" features from konquer!
</sarcasm>

> 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.

alias nw='nautilus [some options perhaps] $CWD'
and then a little script to the nautilus-scripts directory to open
a terminal (though this probably isn't doable yet, IIRC).

> 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.

Keep a terminal open minimized and alt-tab there when in need. That's
what I do (until I have mastered the ability to not use the terminal, still
in training...).

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi


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