Let me add a couple of things to the list: * Make files easy to put in the right directories * Make applications easy to open In pursuance to the above two: * Allow items to be dragged into a configuration (into the Apple Menu/Taskbar/toolbar, whatever)( * Allow files to be dragged around the environment universally and transparently, so that it is easy to move a file, open a file, or whatever. I think that the current MacOS is the best at doing this, with Gnome being a second place (while windows is a little bit slicker than Gnome, I also think it is incredibly cludgy and not configurable enough). However, the point of the dock is to make files and apps even easier to access, categorize, customize, learn, and configure. In a sense, it could take the best of the Windowmaker dock, the gnome taskbar, the MacOS finder, and mix it together into a GOOD way of interacting. William Kendrick wrote: > <snip> > > In this way, you do not limit the choices of interaction, but increase the > > ability to become an expert because instead of learning 5 different ways of > > interacting with applications and file systems, ONE way of using the > > apps/filesystem works the same way. > > I think Mac did this the best way so far with the old Finder! > Applications were just icons you would double click on your filesystem, > just like files. (Well, because they WERE files, but.. :) ) > > Most good filemanagers do pretty much the same thing... > > * Double-click a document and it will launch an appropriate > viewer/editor/whatever. > > * Double-click an application and it will just launch it. > > * Drag a document onto an application, and it will use that > application to open the document. > > I just tried something silly in Gnome Midnight commander. > I had one window open with "/bin" showing, and another with my > home directory. > > I grabbed a file from my home directory, drug it onto the "touch" icon, > and then Rescanned my home directory. Voila... its modification time > was updated. :) > > -bill!
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