Re: [Usability] Some suggestions for Nautilus/filebrowser?

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

> Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 10:37:33 -0400
> From: Frank Huang <fyhuang gmail com>
> Reply-To: fyhuang altitude-tech com
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Some suggestions for Nautilus/filebrowser?
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm not quite sure if this is the correct list, but whatever...

Probably.  Sometimes taking your concerns directly to the Application
developers is more appropriate/effective.

> I have a couple of suggestions for Nautilus and/or the filebrowser:
>
> 1. There should be an option to open directories in the same window. I
> know the 'always open in browser windows' option does this, but I
> don't think that's clear enough.

There are some bug reports requesting similar features already open in
bugzilla, they may not be exactly what you have in mind but if you could
take a look they might be close enough.

> 2. In the file manager, when you click+drag files to another
> window/another directory, it just moves the file without giving you a
> choice of 'move', 'copy', or 'link'. There should be a popup menu that
> does that.

I've seen that in other file managers, the way GQView asks everytime is
particularly annoying.

Gnome generally tries to provide good defaults and not ask too many
questions.  If you use any software regularly those kind of questions get
really annoying really fast.

I believe holding down a modifier key like ctrl/shift will cause the
cursor to change appearance and allow you to make sure you get a move/copy
if that is what you want.

So I am pretty sure this behaviour is intentional.

> 3. (minor aesthetic thing) - In file manager's 'display as icons'
> mode, the icons should line up (like, in a grid fashion). Or provide
> an option that does that.

More recent versions of Nautilus provide this.

(I know it can be a real pain to get organised but ideally you should be
running Gnome 2.11 to have a good idea of what the current state of
Gnome really is like.)

> For the filebrowser (the integrated dialog box in applications'
> 'open', 'save' dialog boxes):
>
> 4. There should be a textbox that allows you to enter in a custom directory.

Ctrl+L reveals such a text box

This is a long running discussion which is unlikely to be resolved anytime
soon.  (I secretly wish some devious hacker would port the old file
chooser to work with the new API so those who dont like the new version
can recompile GTK and stick with what they are used to.)

> 5. When you double-click to go into a folder, the first directory in
> that directory is automatically selected. Now, that's cool, but when
> you click 'open' at the bottom, it opens that selected directory
> instead of using the current directory. This is annoying in apps like
> File Roller, where you cannot extract files to a directory that
> contains other directories because of this.

(long day and I'm tired, brain just stopped working.  maybe someone
else can try answering this)

.zZ

G'night

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/