Re: [Usability] Some usability feedback

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Jamie McCracken wrote:

> Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:43:38 +0000
> From: Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>
> To: Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>
> Cc: Maurizio Colucci <seguso forever tin it>, Gnome UI <usability gnome org>,
>      Nautilus <nautilus-list gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Some usability feedback
>
> On Mon, 2004-11-29 at 14:10 +0000, Calum Benson wrote:
> > On Sat, 2004-11-27 at 12:51 +0000, Jamie McCracken wrote:
> >
> > > Yes this is on my wishlist too. Unfortunately we have been waiting a
> > > long time for medusa (which is Nautilus' search companion and its a lot
> > > better than the gnome-search-tool). I hope we will get something here by
> > > Xmas (if not I might have to implement my own thing!)
> >
> > It's been suggested for years that it would be easy just to add an
> > Edit->Find Files menu item to nautilus that ran "gnome-search-tool
> > --path=<currentdir>", and swap it for the real medusa functionality when
> > it was ready.  Nobody seems very interested in doing that, though :/
>
> Funny that you said that - cause I had already implemented that over the
> weekend in my Nautilus Plus version. I didn't add it to edit menu though
> cuz I thought it functions better in the selection context menu on a
> folder.
>
> Do you want me to release a patch for the standard Nautilus version and
> would it be acceptable?

If you put it in the Edit menu (or possible another top level menu) it
would be much more likely to be acceptable.

> (I only ask cause they get funny about adding extra items to the context
> menus and its quite tricky producing the patch from my heavily modified
> Nautilus Plus so I would like to know upfront)

I very much doubt it they would find it appropriate to put it in the
context menu.  There is nothing funny about it these are not arbitrary
decisions and the Nautilus developers have learned from the mistakes of
others (the context menus in Microsoft File Explorer are often a mess of
third party add ons).  Aside from the limited amount of space ordinary
users do not easily discover features only available in context menus.
The search (is in the context of folders but) is not in the context of the
current file or selected files so it doesn't belong in the context menu.
I would object if they put it in the context menu without a really good
justification for doing so but I trust that Nautilus developers would not
do that.

I think a few applications have a massive amount of blame to accept for
some really bad (experimental and intersting but ultimately) failed
designs and developers conditioned to burying things in context menus
(that generally have little if anything to do with the current context).
The Gnome Human Inteface Guidelines have are the way to go.

- Alan H.