Re: [Usability] Thoughts about the file chooser

[Andre Schaefer <a schaefer uni-duisburg de>]

David Christian Berg wrote:
> Somebody please explain this drag and drop to me...
>
>
> If I have a maximized application and no Nautilus window open I
>
> 1. Press the icon and start dragging
> 2. Hover over the Desktop button on the Panel that should envoke my
> Desktop
> 3. Hover over my Home folder icon to open it
> 4. Hover through my directory via spring-opening folders.
>
> So now there is the problems:
>
> - it takes quite a while (delays due to navigation)
> - is not accessible via keyboard (mousekey is no accessibility!)
> - hidden files are, well, hidden and you don't have a chance to display
> them while hovering
> - spring loaded folders were not gonna be implemented because of some
> patent iirc
>
> opening the Nautilus window first is not really an option either imho.
> It's against the workflow and human mind.
>
> So now: *How* is it supposed to work??

I have worked for years with an OS, which had the DnD idiom defined in 
the style guide and had no file save dialogs in the common sense. It 
worked quite well. (The OS was Acorn RISC OS the name giving OS for the 
ROX system, by the way) - So how did they handle the problems you describe?

1. No Nautilus window open: There was a common shortcut for opening the 
parent window in the file browser (in Nautilus now Backspace). Most 
applications used that to open the folder where the document used to 
reside on load. I belive also NeXTstep allowed to open the parent window 
of an app with a default shortcut.

There was a panel with easily accessible Icons for common locations 
(similar to what is in computer:/// now) The panel comes to the front, 
when the mouse pointer hits the lower screen border and dropping on a HD 
or some folder there, dropped in a default location. This came in handy 
if you didn't decide, where to store you new doc yet.

If you had a folder open already, it would be mostly behind your current 
window. Then you would normally cycle your windows (ALT+TAB) until it 
appears. In addition the window manager did not pop application windows 
to the top on first click, so you could conveniently do your drag and 
drop without having the target vanishing all the time.

What I really liked about that idiom was two pros:

a) You nearly never had to navigate to a location twice: If you found 
your destination in the file browser, your worked naturally with the 
objects there. No need to re-find that location in some "save as" dialog.

b) If you were used to loading files via DnD it was nicely symmetric 
with the save action, which was again via DnD.

By the way: Applications were Drop Target Objects, because they 
displayed an App Icon on the panel, which was also always easily 
reachable for a drop. The gnome quickstart-applet could be used like that.

In the end you were mostly thining in terms of objects rather than 
pathes. Just what spatial nautilus proponents want to achieve.

A historcal article with a few screenshots can be found here:
http://www.acornuser.com/acornuser.php?page=riscos

Accessibility is of course a problem, which they didn't handle properly. 
But for me it worked like a charm.

(I hated file chooser ever since ;) )

* André