Re: Nautilus bugs and design choices

[mawarkus t-online de (Matthias Warkus)]

[This is my last mail on this subject.]

+++ Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 10:39:44PM +0200 +++
Reinout van Schouwen e-mails me. Film at 11. Reply right now, after the break.
> Hi Matthias,
> 
> > >   Should Nautilus use internal views of non-folder content?
> >
> > Yes. People like it,
> 
> So? Surely there are also people who dislike it.

Sure. Let me ask you a question: How much time have you spent
demonstrating GNOME to new users, looking over their shoulders, being
able to judge what they like in it?

Of course this implies I've done this quite often and yes, I know what
people seem to like in GNOME. Especially in Nautilus.

> > it's useful
> 
> How is it more useful than opening a separate (for instance) ggv window
> like you do with filetypes for which no registered viewer exists?

It saves screen real estate, which is a big argument for me already.

> If consistent behaviour were a prime concern then we shouldn't want
> internal viewers until there are viewers for > 90% filetypes in the
> field.

That's a chicken-egg problem. That stance will prevent Nautilus from
ever getting a respectable number of embedded views.
 
> > and we would be derided if we killed
> > a feature all other next-generation file managers seem to have.
> 
> Care to specify what other next-generation file managers you're referring
> to,

Windows Explorer and Konqueror, to name two. I'm sure there are
others.

> and why GNOME developers should care about them?

So we should stop caring about the competition?
 
> > >   Should Nautilus support browser-style navigation?
> >
> > Yes. People are used to it from the Windows platform and/or Web
> > browsers;
> 
> What people are used to from windows does (or should) not matter;

Of course it matters. I'm not even going to try to explain why because
it's been done before.

> web browsers even less since Nautilus is not a web browser.

People know the navigation metaphor of a Web browser and that already
is a good reason to reuse it. Whether an application reusing that
metaphor is a Web browser does not really count.

mawa
-- 
Try IRCnet #linux one day. I might be there.