I've been running gnome 2.6 for a few hours now. I've installed it on
three machines. One my laptop, one my desktop, and one my grandmothers
desktop. My grandmother is slightly handicapped, and movements are hard
for her. I choose to upgrade to 2.6 right away for the accessibility
features.
Here are the major observations I have found regarding the new Default
in browsing directories, a.k.a "spatial". All of these observations are
for all 3 machines.
First, I will start with my personal machine.
I am a heavy mobile laptop user who loves linux on his laptop. It just
makes since to take the most powerful system with you, where every you
go. Since I am almost 100% mobile, the chances I have to pull out a
external mouse are very slim, though I do carry one. So, this means I'm
a touchpad user, and as touchpad usage is already annoying, I tell you
now, spatial browsing via default, doubles the annoyance, as does having
to "select navigation browsing" which on a touchpad isn't exactly a
smooth movement having to right click and hit a menu item either.
List of problems:
A. Extra clicking and precision on mobile systems difficult
B. Long mouse movements take time.
With spatial windows, i find first the problem of having 15 windows
open just to go to a simple directory. To close all those windows docs
say to select remove parent windows, which would be fine however refer
to problem A. Another solution is to hold down the shift key while
opening a new window. However, this solution also has it's downs. Yes,
holding down shift does close the parent window, but how far away is the
new window going to come up? It then takes time to not only locate the
new window mentally, but also refer to problem B.
I find that spatial browsing on my normal desktop, to be not quite as
hindering as on my mobile system. Using a real mouse helps the
situation, however I've found that still having to hunt down windows,
and all the extra mouse distance rather annoying. I have found uses for
the spatial feature though, but more often, I could use spatial in
addition to navigation browsing. Also a spatial window is good for
things like Control panel windows, and printer configuration
windows(printer browser), and those kinds of instances.
A useful example of how spatial effects my usability is as follows:
To move a file:
Navigation way: Navigate to file, cut, back button a few times,
navigate to location paste.
Spatial: open location for file to be moved, re-orient myself every
dir change according to new window position. (hopefully not holding
shift, and accidental hit the wrong folder, this would cause me to start
over) so now i have 8 windows open, click on close parent windows, back
1 one window.
open location for file to be moved to, re-orient myself every dir
change according to new window position. (hopefully not holding shift,
and accidental hit the wrong folder, this would cause me to start over)
so now i have 12 windows open, click on close parent windows, back 1 one
window.
Drag and drop the file into folder to be moved to.
Imagine for a second.. all that with a touch pad...
Other gained features of Navigation:
Often I find that I memorize positions of folders in the Navigation
mode, I can really browse fast, moving mouse very little. make a
mistake, hit the BIG back button, not the little tiny x in the right
hand corner.
I really could go on and on.. Memory usage, window speeds, major
annoyances, and how all this extra movement effects handicapped users.
However, I don't think there is a need to.
I really recommend the nautilus team revise this situation. Make the
default "Navigation" with the ability to open spatial windows, or make
a gconf option that lets you choose either (preferably with Navigation
as default). I've been searching for any major Pro that would benefit
us using spatial as the default, but I'm just not finding one. Please
e-mail me some pro's so I'll have some good things to say in my official
review! :)
The select "browse" just isn't good enough, nor is the hold down
shift. Spatial just takes to long to do a task. Honestly, You don't need
to see every directory you've been to.
Unfortunately, in usability, there's even a reason Microsoft moved
away from spatial. It's because speed, productivity, better usage of
memory, and a better understanding of filesystem layout.
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