Re: [Nautilus-list] FW: Preview Release Comments

["John Sullivan" <sullivan eazel com>]

Ben, thanks for the detailed comments and suggestions. The best thing to do
with specific bug reports or suggestions is to write them up at
bugzilla.eazel.com. That way they won't slip through the cracks.

I've interspersed comments below. Also, I've mentioned Gene and Aaron by
name below at spots where they might be able to help.

on 1/11/01 11:32 AM, John Sullivan at sullivan eazel com wrote:

> Forwarding this private mail to the public list so others can read it too.
> I'll comment on some specifics some time later (too busy right now).
> 
> John
> ----------
> From: "Ben Pregont,,," <starnix yifan net>
> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:25:56 -0600
> To: sullivan eazel com
> Subject: Preview Release Comments
> 
> I have been using the preview release for a few days now and have a few
> suggestions to make it more usable for "Me" anyway.
> 
> 1.     There should be a way of setting properties for ALL folders (ie.
> Zoom,  Background, View) or for a folder and all its subfolders.

I agree, we need to come up with a good design for setting defaults as well
as customizing individual folders. There are already some bug reports on
this topic (including at least bugzilla.eazel.com 448, 894, 927)
 
> 2.    The drive mount icons should have a mount/unmount menu item in the
> menu also an eject menu item.

Gene Ragan (gzr eazel com) added an unmount menu item just a couple of days
ago. I'm pretty sure the drives only appear if mounted, so a "mount" item
wouldn't make sense, and "eject" would be indistinguishable from "unmount".
Gene (or somebody) should correct me if I'm wrong.
 
> 3.    I cannot get mimetypes to work for certian applications (ie.
> gnumeric among others)

I think there's a known problem with gnumeric in that its files are
indistinguishable from gzip files (since they are in fact gzipped). Maybe
that's what you ran into? (I thought there was a bug report about this but I
couldn't find one just now.) It would be helpful to us if you submitted
specific bug reports about each problem in this area that you've
encountered.

> 4.    I cannot browse the web with the nautilus-mozilla module.

This works in general; I can't tell what might be wrong with your case
without more details. Does it spit out any error messages to the terminal
when you try? Maybe it's something about having a different version of
Mozilla on your computer? Maybe you're using a Linux platform that Nautilus
doesn't fully support? A bug report with as many details as possible would
be helpful.
 
> 5.    I cannot access Eazel Services,  I get "eazel: not a valid location".

Hmm. This sounds like you have a build in which eazel services were
disabled, but that shouldn't be the case for the official preview release
build. What platform are you on? Maybe one of the services guys might
recognize this problem.
 
> 6.     In the terminal used to run Nautilus I get the message "**
> WARNING **: No description found for mime type
> "application/x-abiword" (file is "<filename>.abw"), tell
> sullivan eazel com"

Looks like somebody (maybe a web server?) is returning a different MIME type
for abiword documents than Nautilus expects. We can teach Nautilus (actually
gnome-vfs) to handle this alternate MIME type. (Aaron, can you deal with
this?)
 
> 7.    I would also like to see a menu item for "Delete File" instead of
> only "Move to Trash"  This could be configurable to only show in
> the advanced user menus.

I know that many people like this idea, so it would be good if somebody
would write it up as a bug. I personally think it's a bad idea, for several
reasons, which I could go into at great length if anyone really thought it
would be worthwhile. The short summary is: adds complexity, adds danger,
adds almost zero benefit.

> 8.    For the "Show Properties" funciton,  it would be nice if I could
> select multiple files and have it open one window so I can set the
> properties of those files to a common property (ie. If I want to
> put the same emblem on multiple files,  have only one window
> come up to do that.  This is possible in gmc.)

This idea has come up before. It's tricky from a UI point of view to make it
work well and be understandable. Some of the properties shown (e.g. "name")
can't possibly apply to multiple files. You've got to have a way to
distinguish "applies to none/applies to some/applies to all" for each
property that can be set on multiple files. Switching from "applies to some"
to "applies to all" is probably a one-way change, which can be frustrating.

I tried to test how this works in GMC right now, but when I selected two
icons and right-clicked on one the menu didn't include "Properties..." like
it usually does. How do you invoke this behavior in GMC?

> 9.     Files should be able to be moved in another way besides drag and
> drop.  I would like to be able to rightclick on an item and select
> move and have a dialog come up which I can type the path in to
> where I want it moved.  THis is possible in gmc.

Bug 2209 is about this.

> 
> 10.    I can't seem to change icons of items on the desktop.   I can
> bring up the properties and change it but it doesnt take.

Hmm, this should work (the "Change Icon" button in the properties window).
Submitting a bug report with the exact steps would be helpful.
 
> I hope this helps you in development of Nautilus as I see this as a VERY
> promising future for GNOME.  These are just some concerns I have in the
> usability of Nautilus.  Thank you for your time and efforts...

Thanks again for the detailed comments.

John

> That's all for now....
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ben Pregont
> 
> 
> 
> 
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