Re: [Usability] Inconsistent file size units

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007, Raphael Bosshard wrote:

> Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:23:45 +0200
> From: Raphael Bosshard <raphael bosshard gmail com>
> To: Usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Inconsistent file size units
>
> Hello there!
>
> One of the most outstanding points of the GNOME desktop is the focus
> towards usability and consistency. This is one of the reasons I'm
> using GNOME. There is, however, one thing that has been bugging me for
> quite some time now: the inconsistency in the use of file size units.

> I guess that most of the readers know the problem of using SI units as
> prefixes for file sizes and similar power-of-two values, so I won't
> elaborate on this point. Readers new to that topic I point to [1].

To paraphrase quick and check I understand you correctly you are
talking about:
MB versus MiB
KB versus KiB
GB versus GiB etc.

Gnome uses the older convention.  Any application that doesn't offer it as
the default is incorrect and needs to provide it as the default option.
Not sure where the inconsistent units snuck in but individual developers
should be trying to avoid those kinds of inconsistencies (or if they care
enough to push for it as policy and provide an option in the meantime).

This is a technical issue with usability impact but it needs a technical
solution (as do most of the consistency issues which is why they are so
difficult to solve).  If you could gather consensus on desktop-devel and
start pushing applications to provide the type of units you want (you'd
definitely want to be providing patches to make this happen) then perhaps
Gnome could become ready to change the default units in a future release
(and possibly going beyond making it a choice and making it the only
option but that is perhaps a different question).

In the unlikely event anyone wants to know my bias, my opinion is the
inconsistency bothers me much more than any change would, so we need to
stick with the old convention until a proper consistent change can be
made.  In terms of usability the exact values are not so importat to users
as knowing if they have enough space to get things done, and ideally the
software could calculate this for them and provide helpful advice rather
than anyone ever needing to look at the precise values.

-- 
Alan