McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 4:35 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014)
In reply to: McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus] by tchernobog
Parent article: McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

I think it's kind of essential to have a tree view when navigating a hierarchy, so you can, you know, see where you are in the hierarchy and navigate through it.

Like, for example, say you are in the "build" directory of a source tree.

The tree view then tells you immediately that there is also a "source" directory and a "docs" directory, where they are, and that the program is in a folder with the source of other programs, and you immediately learn the name of those other programs, and can go visit them easily with a single click.

Personally, I don't think "Copy to" and "Move to" specifically needs a tree view, since you can just Ctrl+C, navigate to destination, Ctrl+V (well, until the GNOME 3 geniuses remove the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V shortcuts, which I'm sure they will if not stopped before since they "don't work with touch").

Some people might prefer to drag or Ctrl+drag files to entries in the tree view though, which is another reason to not remove established features.

> The tree view also has a number of usability issues; a notable one is that it requires some dexterity with the mouse, especially to click on the expanding triangle.

Well, this is probably a good point, but the solution is to make the triangle bigger relative to the entry, expand the clickable area in the whitespace to the left and/or make the entries taller, not to remove the feature!

You don't cut off someone's head because he has an headache.

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 6:23 UTC (Fri) by Seegras (guest, #20463) [Link]

> Personally, I don't think "Copy to" and "Move to" specifically needs a
> tree view, since you can just Ctrl+C, navigate to destination, Ctrl+V
> (well, until the GNOME 3 geniuses remove the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V shortcuts,
> which I'm sure they will if not stopped before since they "don't work
> with touch").

Hmm, you mean, doing something stupid like not sending SIGINIT and LNEXT respectively?

I don't give a damn whether windows does it, but there are enough modifier keys on a keyboard that "copy" and "paste" can be assigned something else (like "command-C", as MacOS X does it).

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 6:40 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (8 responses)

> I think it's kind of essential to have a tree view when navigating a hierarchy, so you can, you know, see where you are in the hierarchy and navigate through it.

You got that wrong buddy. You _do_ _not_ want to see where you are at all. Never. Ever!

See, Gnome Shell comes with similar "improvements", such as removal of (at least) a decade old workspace switcher. This decade old workspace switcher could tell you where you were just by glancing at it. No action required at all. Just turn your eyes to where it sits and voilà - you know.

The new behaviour is far better, you see. You have to travel with the mouse up the top (nah - just use the keyboard - they'll tell you), then either wait or click, then travel to the right to actually see the workspaces, after they "slide out". Soo much better!

So, here is what you need to do. You need to work with one file at the time, using one program at the time. OK? Because, that's the new paradigm.

;-)

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 7:05 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

> So, here is what you need to do. You need to work with one file at the time, using one program at the time. OK? Because, that's the new paradigm.

STOP! Don't give them new ideas!

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 18:55 UTC (Fri) by sciurus (guest, #58832) [Link] (1 responses)

Too late, there's aleady http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/GNOME

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 18:59 UTC (Fri) by sciurus (guest, #58832) [Link]

On second thought, that page is much more offensive than I remembered, so you may not want to click. This is a shame, since it has some gems like "The ultimate GNoal for the GNOME desktop is to completely make users obsolete by eventually removing support for user input devices, instead, opting for simply allowing the user to view several pixels at random."

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 9:05 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

> You got that wrong buddy. You _do_ _not_ want to see where you are at all. Never. Ever!

You have your current path displayed at the top of the window.

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 9:56 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (3 responses)

I think you may want to read the post I was replying to again. There is more to it than current path, obviously.

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 18:56 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

I see.

In the case of copy and paste were you don't want to navigate to another directory in the original dialog; you must have at least two windows open. One with the path of the source and another with the path to the destination.

Tree view, while it may be a nice feature, is certainly not required to keep track of multiple paths in a graphical manner.

I am not defending the removal of the tree view or diminishing the desire of others to have such a feature. I am just saying that it's certainly not required to keep track of locations as I have not been aware that Nautilus supported tree view for many many years and it has never occurred to me that it's missing any functionality nor has it diminished my ability to copy and paste between different directories.

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 4, 2012 1:22 UTC (Sat) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (1 responses)

Just like you, I do not use tree view. That does not mean it is not useful to someone else. I recognise and respect that.

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 4, 2012 2:20 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

I am glad we agree on that point.

McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Posted Aug 3, 2012 13:35 UTC (Fri) by kh (guest, #19413) [Link]

If you leave people tree view, they won't be forced to use your new search, duh! In the next version we may be able to get rid of folders altogether. Search, don't organize!