[Usability] Re: two-panel nautilus view

[karderio <karderio gmail com>]

On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 13:00 +1300, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: 
> On 7 Feb, 2006, at 4:56 AM, karderio wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 13:05 +0100, Peter Lundqvist wrote:
> >>
> >> On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Tuomas Kuosmanen wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 22:24 +0100, Oliver Tobin wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> while using nautilus, i had the idea that a two-panel-view is 
> >>>> useful for copying or moving files and other things like this.
> > ...
> >>> I think the same functionality can be achieved just fine by opening 
> >>> two separate Nautilus windows or..?
> >
> > It could, but one window can hide the other,
> 
> If that's a major concern, you can use a tiling window manager.
> And even non-tiling window managers should make it easier to arrange 
> windows side by side, whether they be folders, Web pages, or 
> spreadsheets. This isn't a Nautilus-specific problem, so it shouldn't 
> have a Nautilus-specific solution.

I agree, it's not a Nautilus specific problem, I think web browsers
suffered from the same problem until they started using tabs. I am very
glad that this was also addressed in gedit, for example.

I believe most would agree that tabs in web browsers and text editors
have many advantages. Would tabs not bring the same benefits to
nautilus ?

> > which would not happen with tabs.
> 
> Actually it would *always* happen with tabs, because overlapping each 
> other exactly is what tabs do. Tabs aren't relevant to this thread.

Of course tabs would always overlap each other, but this would be fine
if you could drag and drop files to tabs, as in firefox for example. The
tabs themselves are always visible and never overlap, even if only the
contents of the selected tab are visible.

I'm sorry if tabs are not relevant to this thread, perhaps I should have
started a new thread ?

> > ...
> > I would prefer tabs over split screen, you can have many tabs, but a
> > split screen would get rather squished with more than a few splits. I
> > can't see many usage scenarios where you have to see the contents of 
> > two folders simultaneously (at least I cannot remember ever having to 
> > place two nautilus windows side to side).
> > ...
> 
> Any time you want to move or copy files quickly. If you've ever tried 
> to coach someone through a drag-and-drop via the Windows taskbar or the 
> Gnome window list ("no, no, don't let go of the button! wait for the 
> window to pop up! ... ok, let's go back and try again"), you know how 
> unfriendly drag-and-drop via tabs would be.

Again, that would not be an issue if you dropped files to the tab,
rather than switching to the tab over which you are hovering.

If you were intending to drop into subfolders you would use separate
windows, rather than tabs.

The problem you underline when dragging and dropping through the
"windows taskbar", is actually the problem I was getting at when I said
it was a pain to drag and drop between windows, when one covered the
other.

I have CCed the usability list, they seem to love discussing this sort
of thing ;-)

Love, Karderio