[Nautilus-list] thoughts

[<mitch nuclear physics gatech edu>]

	I've always thought the user directory has been flawed. It's
rather ridiculous to mix user files, downloaded files, etc.. with user
system files like .xinitrc, .Xdefault, .bashrc, .desktop, etc.... I know
it's basically a set standard now days but it needs to come to a end. At
first thought it sounds ridiculous to even suggest changing this but it's
more than needed. How could such a change come about? 
A.)Make the X team change some standards, bash, etc.... (needed but
unlikely)
B.)Change the standard for all apps, and desktop/window
environments? (seems even more unlikely)

C.) others?

Even if a layout for gnome or kde was to be done such as Desktop,
Programs, etc.... there will still be apps that download to the user
directory by default. Such programs could be anything from netscape,
mozilla, irc, icq, etc... The point is that the user directory is flawed
and should be fixed rather than worked around with half ass approaches
that do nothing but make things more difficult without ever fixing the
intial flaw. However, I do think there should be some default directories
such as Desktop, Documents, Programs, etc... Perhaps user directories
should have a directory within called  .system which contains files such
as .desktop, .Xdefaults, etc.... or perhaps a location of it's own outside
of the user directory. A .system inside every directory seems a bit more
practical though. Obviously such a move doesn't make a system concrete by
any means but at least no application will ever download files to that
location by default. I know what I suggest is almost impossible to do at
this stage but I think a little talk with the LSB and the guys of Xfree86,
etc... everyone would agree. This has even been a problem in windows by
placing files in C:. Can you imagine how many people have messed their
system up by messing with system files in there? A lot. Anyway, this is a
linux and unix standard problem not a problem for gnome to work around.


	Nautilus needs to be more fluid in use. As of now, it appears that
features or options have just been cramed in under long and confusing
menus. Well, I can find everything fine but it would be a pain to a new
user. Here are some problems:
A.) No intuitive way to work between drives like Floppy, Hard disk, Cdrom,
etc.... I suggest a nice menu panel with icons for each which of course
would have to be dynamic. It would also be cool to include a printer,
speaker, and monitor too. It would be nice to dnd text files or doc files
to the printer. It would also be nice to dnd mp3s to the speaker or mpegs
to the video monitor. 

B.) No intuitive or fluid way to move between user and root/su. What good
is a file browser that can only be useful inside the user
directory? However, this could get tricky. I'm not so sure if it's a good
idea to have the full nautilus window as su/root. Perhaps on unpriviledged
tasks, it should ask for password. Ex. you attempt to delete a file in
/var/www/html/ but get a popup window asking for su/root password. That
way it's only used for deleting that one file. However, the problem with
this is having retype the password a number of times. That would get
old. Yet I still don't think the full nautilus window should be su/root. 

C.) Unless nautilus is to become the standard web browser, get rid of all
the bookmark crap, etc.... Nautilus looks way too loaded with menu
options. In other words, the UI doesn't look well thought out.



	that's my six cents on the matter. Forgive a physicist's lack of
computer mentality if I sounded like a bafoon on my suggestions. However,
it's people like me that use linux/unix/gnome on a day to day basis and we
too have opinions on what it is we use.