Re: [Utopia] [patch] improved hal support for gnome-vfs

[Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>]

On Fri, 2005-07-01 at 23:18 -0400, David Zeuthen wrote:
> Right, however this leads to a bunch of issues
> 
>  - First, what name and icon should we use for the "composite drive"?

We use an icon that looks like a "composite drive". ;)  Seriously
though.

>  - Second, it kills the idea that the user can go to computer:/// to see
>    what his (primary) storage devices are - I think this *may* be useful
>    for users to discover that they actually have a drive that can do
>    "Compact Flash", "Memory Stick" or at least that their media looks
>    like the nice emblem on the drive [1] when/if we get nice icons.

I see what you're saying, but I think it's a hugely small use case where
the person can't physically see the drives and then we expect them to
look in computer:/// to find out that they do in fact have that drive.

Those kinds of hardware were supposed to be designed to physically look
different from the others so people would know what fits where and what
they have.  Giving that kind of information visually is a good idea, but
I don't think that equates to showing each drive individually.

>  - Third; the number of icons in computer:/// changes when there is
>    media resp. no media which may scare the user

Yes, but the "user" isn't watching computer:/// waiting for things to
happen at least isn't a scenario we're enabling.  I believe what we
really want is that a person puts a media card in the drive and the
computer recognizes what kind of media it is and allows the person to
work with it in the most intelligent manner.  That's what I'd say our
goal is, everything else is secondary and pretty trivial.

> [1] : The typical (physical) multi-card-reader drive is typically not
> very helpful. At best it might say "CF", "MS/MS-PRO" on each resp. slot
> but most don't say anything at all. It's just scary looking differently
> sized slots. Btw, my brother actually written F:, G:, H: and I: above
> each slot on his 4-slot 12in1 card reader because that's exactly how
> usable Windows is :-)

Heh, ok.  So maybe this convinces me that your brother is crazy.  ;-)
Perhaps individual drives are a good thing, it just doesn't seem to make
sense to me.  My gut says that most people look for a one-to-one
relationship in this kind of feedback.  Just because this is a
multi-drive it is still only one physical thing, the individual drives
don't look like individual things to the person.  *shrug*

> Do other HCI people pound raw meat?

No, I think I invented it.

~ Bryan