[Usability] Nautilus: Overwrite Existing File/Folder Dialog Buttons

[Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>]

Hello usability geeks! :)

We've got Nautilus users who complain that when they copy multiple files
and there is a conflict (moving foo to bar, where bar/foo existed
beforehead, that is), they want that we offer the following 5
possibilities:
Skip, Skip All, Replace, Replace All, Cancel

They should all be presented in one dialog. I fear they might look very
scary. Is there anything "creative" we could do about them? We had a
little discussion in #nautilus on IRC on that:

22:17:57 <Manny> hrm if we have multiple conflicts when moving, we are
meant (according to some users) to provide replace all, skip all, skip,
replace and cancel. Isn't this a bit much for one dialog?
22:18:10 <Manny> let's ask the usability crew :)
22:18:18 <interatom_> hehe, you have to check out the kde dialog for
this case
22:19:00 <Manny> as jdub said...whenever they have an empty space in
their dialog, they stick in a widget!
22:19:08 <Manny> s^dialog^$0s^
22:19:41 <interatom_> but it sucks there's no skip all
22:21:18 <Manny> yup, but the backend supports it
22:21:30 <Manny> I still have a private patch for it but 5 buttons in 1
dialog just suck
22:22:02 <quinn> You know what I'd like? Something like the Gedit save
confirm dialog listing all the conflicts.
22:22:19 <quinn> So you could check, say, the ones you wanted to
overwrite and go from there.
22:22:39 <Manny> quinn: won't work here
22:23:07 <Manny> nice idea, but doe to the fact the VFS works we can't
investigate all conflicts at the same time
22:23:15 * quinn nods
22:23:33 <Manny> especially if you move FTP hierarchies, this might not
be desireable
22:23:37 <Manny> ...or we'd have to collect conflicts and afterwards
present them
22:23:58 <Manny> we'd have to skip them at the first run and then
re-transfer them if desired
22:24:09 <Manny> but somehow this sounds scary
22:24:10 <arc_> Manny: nautilus could decide when to try to resolve
conflicts in that way... (remote fs and so)
22:24:28 <Manny> arc_: what do you mean by "in that way"?
22:24:41 <Manny> the files are shoveled by the VFS, one after an other
22:24:56 <Manny> we have a callback which returns what will be done with
a particular file which is currently shoveled
22:25:26 <arc_> Manny: the way that gedit does

gedit resolves this obviously in a very creative way, and we can
investigate moving to that system, which would require some backend
bending. But for now, I think it is better to just polish the conflict
dialog. Do you think that it is reasonable to put 5 response buttons
into 1 dialog? If yes, what would be the preferred order? I've come to
the conclusion that

Replace All, Skip All, Skip, Cancel, Replace

could be quiet appropriate. What's your opinion?

-- 
Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>