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

[Matthew Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

Christian Neumair wrote:
> ...
> 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

That's highly unfortunate; I think it would be better to concentrate on 
fixing that than on making the alert more complicated. Putting up 
multiple consecutive alerts is very impolite, especially when it's 
technically possible to avoid.

> ...
> 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?

I think that's too many. In what case is "Skip" or "Skip All" ever 
useful? I can't think of one -- except where you've added files to one 
version of a folder, and then use that version to overwrite another 
version. But for that you should be using a proper Synchronize command, 
not a Move or Copy, because you might have deleted stuff deliberately 
from the local folder too, and you want that deletion repeated on the 
other version.

Once pre-flighting is implemented, "Replace" and "Replace All" can also 
be merged into "Replace". For example: 'Items with all the same names 
already exist in "Bar". Do you want to replace them with the ones you're 
moving?" And: 'Some items with the same names (including "Foo") already 
exist in "Bar". Do you want to replace them with the ones you're 
moving?' And so on.

Of your proposed buttons, the most useful one by far is "Cancel", which 
unfortunately doesn't even exist in the current alert. If I'm moving 
several items at once, and some of them won't go, chances are I don't 
want to move *any* of them there after all. I want to move them to the 
folder I really meant (a different one), or all together to a disk that 
has enough room (a different one). So if "Cancel" is implemented, make 
sure it really means Cancel, not just Stop.

So, ideally I'd prefer just "Cancel" and "Replace", with pre-flighting 
to collect and summarize conflicts, and a separate Synchronize feature 
covering the case where you want to merge changes between two copies of 
a folder including replacements and/or deletions. Until pre-flighting is 
implemented, you'll need Replace All, Cancel, and Replace.

--
Matthew Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/