Re: [Usability] Re: Re: Spatial nautilus - fantastic - but what about the rest?

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ freenet de>]

On Sat, May 29, 2004 at 03:35:23AM +0200, Alban Browaeys wrote:
> 
> Versioning really do not fit with desktop paradigm. It eventually
> conflicts with the spatial way. Directory being document versions's
> container or document container is ubiquitious for the least. Could
> versioning be achieved globally (ie for al applications even those not
> aimed at versioning - gedit)? Are you talking about incremental
> versioning or version snapshots ?

I meant incremental versioning. With version bookmarks as links to 
positions in the edit history.

It could be kept strictly spatial, because there's just the document, 
and using the bookmarks happens inside the document. But sometimes 
it would be nice to be able to compare versions of the document. 
Therefore it should be possible to open several views of a document. 
You can argue this would weaken the spatial concept. But I think 
there's more to be gained than lost.


> I have nothing against user centric paradigm except them being like
> computer one"s . Document vs hierarchical filesystem are unable to fit in
> a desktop layer. They are application or os centric. What about the
> "File", the abstract one with content header, meta data.

I'm sorry, but I do not understand what you're trying to say here.

 
> A "snaphsot version" bookmark widget would fit everywhere . That s great !
> How could it be done for incremental verion without rewriting most
> applications that i don t get.

Who said it could happen without rewriting?


> > I see no reason to not have an export option in a documents menu. 
> 
> It is unintuitive, useless in the open source world. That s for
> undocmented/alien data format. Most of the time to show that this 
> conversion loose informations.
> Fist it really deserve a new name: "Convert" ? This new name lead to the
> why not in OSS world: we can split format converters from apps to libs
> available to other aplpications. Every application binding to each libs,
> choosing one which could be not feet our need. There this conversion layer
> is missing. 

Take for example a multi layered image in GIMP. To use it on the web 
I need it in another format, with less information. No undocumneted/ 
alien formats here. In the context of the versioning system export would 
be generaly useful to generate a file without edit history and stuff, 
so you can give it away, mail it, whatever.
But for local use export shouldn't be needed. Using something like a 
embedding mechanism all documents should be usable in other documents.
The interesting thing would be referencing various versions of one 
document in other documents. 


---
Thorsten Wilms