Re: Nautilus Sidebar

[Who <mailforwho googlemail com>]

On 7/1/06, Ryan Paul <segphault sbcglobal net> wrote:
> I like the idea of an interface that changes dynamically to reflect
> actions available for the selected element, but I think that the panel
> is a better place for this than a nautilus sidebar. It would be nice to
> have a context sensitive toolbar sort of thing embedded in the GNOME
> panel that would change depending on which application is active and
> what item is selected. Would making it a universal panel thing be an HIG
> violation? Having application functionality accessible somewhere other
> than the application window might be bad usability mojo.

I don't know whether it would violate the HIG - but I consider the
panel as something _separate_ from any application. I know where my
firefox icon is at all times, and I don't want that to change. Putting
dynamic information on the panel about the current application is a
big departure from the way things work, and I think it is far less
intuitive than putting dynamic information _right by the stuff it
relates to_. Do you have specific reasons for not wanting to use the
sidebar?

> Potentially, it could show the most frequently used menu/toolbar items
> for the active program, or if you select a specific item it could also
> show the right-click menu options for that item. In a recent thread, I
> remember somebody saying something about users not being aware of
> features available on right-click menus, so this could really enhance
> usability in that sense and expose more functionality to the user.
I said people weren't aware of context menus in my proposal. I think
that moving them a laong way away from where the user is looking isn't
going to be much more helpful than having them on right click - puting
the options right next to a file makes it clear what they relate to.

With a whole screen full of applications, I don't think it is clear
that a 'reame file' menu item on the panel relates to the file
selected in the current Nautilus window!

> In Windows Vista, the file manager has a toolbar that changes to show
> contextually relevant operations. When I select a text file while
> browsing a folder in Vista, that toolbar changes so that it has an
> 'open' drop-down menu with a list of applications with which the file
> can be opened, a print button, an e-mail button, a share button, etc. It
> really makes the system functionality a lot more accessible to users
> that don't know it's on the right-click menu.
>
> I could imagine programs making actions available via d-bus for this
> feature. That would make it possible for developers to create
> alternative interfaces that can take advantage of it in addition to a
> panel applet. This is probably a bit too ambitious for the GNOME 2
> series, but maybe something to think about for GNOME 3?

Dbus seems like it may be a good way to do the communication between
Nautilus and the 'Engines' I outlined - can someone in the know
sugggest whether this is true?

> Also, the nautilus information panel already has buttons with
> application actions, maybe it would be beneficial to build on that for
> the short term? It looks like those buttons in the info panel only show
> 'open with' actions for the current directory. Maybe the information
> panel should be improved to also show the 'open with' operations
> associated with the selected file as well as the current directory?

This has been suggested before, and was filed as a bug in a few
places. Given that nothing has changed even after some patches were
submitted I wonder whether it will actually change. Perhaps if the
issue was with the quality of the patch it could stiulll happen...

> As long as I am rambling about Nautilus interface stuff, I'd like to
> suggest that proper right-click support be added to the buttons in the
> location/path bar. Say that I want to open the parent folder in a new
> window. Rather than having to go to the parent and then select 'open in
> new window' from the file menu, I want to be able to right-click it in
> the path bar and select 'open in new window.' Is there a reason why this
> hasn't been done yet? Maybe implementing that would be a good way for me
> to start getting involved in GNOME development?

I think a more useful thing to do relating to those buttons is to
allow access to a path box without pressing CTRL+L - I cannot think of
a good way to do this apart from having a toggle button, or
implementing it more like [textbox][button "/"][TextBox][button"/"]
etc - but that may look clumsy and really weird!

> -- Ryan

Who