Re: [patch] Bug 88585, Sorting of size column is messed up

[Braden McDaniel <braden endoframe com>]

On Tue, 2002-11-12 at 23:09, David Watson wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 2002-11-12, Tomas Junnonen wrote:
> > I would say all the columns currently implemented in the Nautilus view
> > can be arranged into an sensible order, defining what is "normal"
> > sounds a lot harder on the other hand.
> 
> I don't know why you think the "sensible" is anymore well defined then
> "normal".
> 
> The words GTK_SORT_ASCENDING and GTK_SORT_DESCENDING were invented by gtk+
> hackers.  They have nothing to do with _anything_ a user cares about.
> 
> > > Actually its still not consistent.  For example the date column sorts
> > > from most recent to least recent when the arrow points down.  This is
> > > what gtk+ calls ascending order, but numerically more recent dates
> > > are larger then less recent dates, so the dates are really
> > > descending...
> > >
> > > So why don't we fix the date column too?
> >
> > The date column should probably be fixed too, and I can create a patch
> > for that.
> 
> And my argument about consistency should not have implied that we change
> the sort order for dates.  For example, in evolution when I sort by date,
> I almost always want to see the most recent message.  Yet if we followed
> my argument, I would have to click twice to see the most recent message.
> 
> That, IMHO, would be a poor design choice.  The gnome UI shouldn't be
> determined by consistency with two C #defines.

(I've lost track of who's advocating precisely what here; so, David, my
follow-up to your posting should not necessarily be perceived as
disagreement with your design objective. I'm not clear on whether I'm
disagreeing with that or not. I think I make clear what I believe should
be the outcome.)

How many times one has to click to do something can be a sensible
selector for a default value, but it makes no sense at all to apply this
as a selector to the choice of signage.

This is really quite simple. An "up" arrow means that the "smaller"
things are at the top, and a "down" arrow means that the "bigger" things
are at the top.

That means that when the arrow points up:
        * "A" comes before "Z".
        * older dates come before newer dates.
        * smaller files come before larger files
And when the arrow points down:
        * "Z" comes before "A".
        * newer dates come before older dates.
        * larger files come before smaller files.

This is how Evolution works.

This is how Windows Explorer works.

I don't have a Mac handy, but I would be surprised if it worked
differently.

Nautilus' Date and Size columns are just fine. It's Name and Type that
are busted. The Search tool appears to be consistently busted (and it
should be consistently corrected).

It doesn't matter a bit which ordering of a given column is perceived as
the most useful one, even if we could determine this quantitatively.
What matters is that this fundamental symbolism that has been used lots
and lots of places before GNOME 2 is used the same in GNOME 2 as it has
been everywhere else.

-- 
Braden McDaniel                           e-mail: <braden endoframe com>
<http://endoframe.com>                    Jabber: <braden jabber org>