Re: [Nautilus-list] Sorting Directories First

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Manuel Clos wrote:
> I like the way ls does it. I like to be able to put some items at the
> top of a list
> by just capitalizing a letter, it is very useful to me. I think a lot of
> users like
> it, so it would be good to have an option to get this behaviour.

Yes, I agree that it could be a useful option to have "ls-like" sorting,
but ONLY as an option. The reason is that that type of sorting is
terribly broken - it doesn't even confirm to US. English lexigraphical
sorting rules and of course even less with international sorting rules
(each language/locale has its own way of sorting things alphabetically).


> I know you are good experts at UI, but changing the way people uses to
> work may cause
> trouble to them, and then they won't feel good with the UI, no matter
> how good it is.
> 
> User is always right (even when he/she is wrong).

The problem is that a default way of handling sorting has to be chosen.
No matter how you look at it, or what your opinion is, choosing one way
of sorting will make some people think it's broken.
Either you think that the several-hundred-year-old sorting rules in many
languages are broken and the 30-year-old UNIXism with sorting capital
letters first is the way to go, or you accept that this 30-year-old
UNIXism was only a long-lived bug and that sorting should done
"according to the book" by default, and sorting the old way should be
left only as a compability option (for people used to the old, broken
way of sorting).

I've witnessed this type of list discussions and problem reports several
times since glibc 2.2 introduced proper sorting "by the book", and all
the time the overall consensus has been "tough, you may not like it, but
please face it, this is a fix to a previously broken behavior".

I think most users will understand why sorting had to be changed, if
they are politely explained how the old way was very broken (it is
indeed a good candidate for a Nautilus FAQ question: "Why are upper-case
item names not sorted first?" or something ike that), and that they can
have it the old way, if they like, by setting an option.


Christian