Re: Reducing the number of special uris in gnome

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On 27 Jun 2002, Dave Bordoley wrote:

> Right now we have 6 special uris that i know of.
> 
> start-here:
> preferences:
> applications:
> system-settings:
> server-settings:
> trash:
> 
> In general this is bad from a ui perspective, since they are not
> connected in a meaningful way (no hierarchy like a file system just
> random locations). I have a solution. 

I think you are doing a major error in this thinking. Normal people (i.e. 
not unix hackers) in general don't think hierarchies are that easy to 
understand. Ever tried to explain the unix filesystem tree concept to 
someone who just wanted to change his desktop background and then go on 
getting his work done?

Most peoples mind work spatially. You remember specific places, such as 
"the place where the settings are", and not the location of it in some 
abstract hierarchy. 
 
> The first 5 in the list really all serve the same function. They are all
> used to launch applications. Why not just remove all of them except for
> applications://, the directory where apps are meant to be launched from
> anyway, they all double the functionality of this directory anyway
> (there is no app available from these directories that i cannot launch
> from the applications directory that I know of. Why created confusion
> lets just have one place to launch apps from in nautilus).

Ah, to you, the unix person, they're all about launching applications, but 
if you ask joe user what he thinks about when he wants to change his 
desktop font, i doubt it will be even related to "launching an 
application". The settings stuff are in a special place in order to hide 
the fact that they are apps, and to promote the idea that they are just 
the icons you click on to get the settings dialogs.
 
> To facilitate a good ui I propose that we add applications to the the go
> menu as well as the nautilus toolbar. This will make this directory
> easily accessible for users. In addition by doing this we create a
> hierarchal directory structure for launching apps. This is nice as
> applications:// can be added to the tree view as a second root node.

This might be a good idea anyway.
 
> If we do this we reduce the number of special gnome uris to two,
> applications:// and trash://. 
>
> I expect that this will be much more usable from a users perspective.

I think it will lead to more confusion.

Although i'd agree any day that start-here is a bad name, but i haven't 
heard a better one yet.
-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an all-American umbrella-wielding astronaut possessed of the uncanny 
powers of an insect. She's a sarcastic snooty journalist from beyond the 
grave. They fight crime!