Re: [Usability] An Attempt at tasks for the FOSD

[Dave Malcolm <david davemalcolm demon co uk>]

On Sat, 2003-09-13 at 18:06, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On 13 Sep 2003, Dave Malcolm wrote:
> 
> > > * View a preview of the item being opened
> 
> I hope that restraint will be shown and that previews wont involve
> embedding full blown media players, for video a few still keyframes
> really should be enough.
> 
> > Suggested addition to "occasional by many": compare certain properties
> > of files:
> 
> The root of the problem that both both the previews and the
> properties/metadata are trying to address is duplicate files.  Users want
> to either deliberately avoid duplication or possibly override older
> versions.
> 
> I try to largely ignore the problem by adding some sort of suffix to the
> files and worry about sorting out duplicates and cleanign up my filesystem
> later with nautilus or something.
> 
> Rather than trying to provide all the information straight away, this
> information could be provided if a user tried to overwrite an existing
> file, at which point the extra information would allow them to decide if
> they really wanted to overwrite the existing file.

I suggested the "compare certain properties of files" as an addition to
File->Open, rather than to File->Save As.

I'm thinking of the case where you have lots of similar names and
similar-looking files (so the preview doesn't help), and you want to
make sure you open the correct one.

Examples are directories full of bitmaps that are the same image but at
different resolutions/colour depths, and directories full of word
processor documents, which invariably haven't been named sensibly - not
in the places I've worked at, anyway :-(

The more relevant the metadata we can display to the user, the better.

Dave