Re: [Usability] Faded File Extensions

[Jason Hoover <jasonhoover verizon net>]

On Sat, 2005-12-31 at 17:44 +0100, David Christian Berg wrote:

> Hiding the extension is not always useful. I often need to know, if an
> image is a jpg or a png, or -- even more important -- maybe even an svg.
> All these have a preview and I very much appreciate that.
> So I'd think that hiding the extension should be an option which is on
> by default, just like it is on win or mac. If the extension is hidden,
> the tooltip should show the extension and the sniffed file type.

Really, the icon should be doing that for you. You should also be giving
the files distinct names, not just relying on the extension for the sake
of spotting it quickly. Such a case of course is why it'd be an option.
There are no tool-tips in Nautilus AFAIK.

> As for renaming it should just work as it does right now. I love this
> behaviour! The extension should be shown but not selected, now matter if
> showing extensions is turned on or off.

Of course. I was implying that. I love it too.

> I really hate this alert. The interface should clarify, that renaming
> the extension is usually not what you want to do. Hence only the name
> should be selected. It should warn you about not having any extension.
> The dialogue should be OK-> use no extension, Cancel -> reedit the name,
> Use old extension -> uses the extension the file had before.

The actions of the buttons would be a bit ambiguous. You'd need
something clear like:

[Warning icon]
Really change extension of:
  Bob's quarterly "report"

From: 	doc - MS Word doc.
To:	rtf - Rich text file.

[Yes]	[No]	[Cancel]

Just a vague idea, but it's better than having to read the extension on
a shiny button every time you want to change it like OS X, or the
irritating similar behavior in windows (that I can't recall).

> > In short, it's hack upon confirmation alert upon hack, and a shining 
> > example of why you shouldn't use file extensions to indicate filetype.
> 
> Sometimes the user does though, as indicated above.

I've had ZIP files get MIME'd as MP3's, so there's little chance that
extensions will be going away anytime within the next (ironic quote
time) 10 years.

-Jason