Re: Mega patch to make spatial nautilus rock!

[Seth Nickell <seth gnome org>]

> 1) optional bookmarks in spatial mode. 

I can't comment on the implementation, though the old Nautilus bookmarks
seemed a little over engineered... but...

This should really be integrated with the Places menu (i.e. make the
places menu extensible) AND shared with the new file dialog's list of
"bookmarks".

> 2) bookmarks with shortcut keys (limited to first 10 entires- ctrl+1,
> ctrl+2 etc).

This seems like a nice feature as long as we don't already use CTRL-#
for something else? It seems plausible that Metacity would use this for
something?

> 3) ability to set folder actions for left and middle mouse buttons
> 4) an open in same window option for (3) above. 

These are basically options to make "spatial mode" work like "navigation
mode". Why? Given that there's a preference to just switch over to
navigation mode, why not do that and use a UI that's designed around
that? I don't see an advantage to adding certain aspects of "navigation
mode" to "spatial mode".

> This setting can be thought of as spatial inheritance - it inherits the
> properties of its parent though spatial coherence is still maintained
> (so its not a browser clone!). 

Its a browser window. Spatial inheritance is so totally non-spatial.
When have you seen something "inherit the physical properties of
another" in the real world? ;-)

> Once a spatial window is re-used in this
> way it no longer loads or saves properties therefore it wont screw up
> any saved spatial settings.

It screws up the scroll position.... but that's a minor detail not my
real objection :-)

> 5) an optional pathbar displayed instead of the location button
> 
> This is a really neat addition as it also solves the problem of
> displaying the full path in a spatial window as well as providing a
> slick way to navigate upwards. 

1) It puts Unix path garbage onto every window. We are trying to
minimize the impact of our poorly laid out filesystem throughout GNOME.
The file dialog gets around this by using a UI trick to provide a
plausible explanation for re-rooting of the path bar. However, I don't
see a way Nautilus can use this trick. It means that every window will
have, e.g. "[/] [home] [username]" of noise in it (or potentially even,
say, "[/] [afs] [ir.stanford.edu] [s] [n] [snickell]" or "[/] [usr]
[local] [home] [seth]" etc).

2) Spatial windows are often quite small. Pathbar (despite scrolling,
which is all very well) does not work as well in these situations.

3) Opening in new window upon clicking on path bar elements feels weird,
particularly in contrast to the behavior in the file dialog.

> I hope this mega patch gets added cause it would be really cool if Gnome
> 2.8 has this. It will not only make file management a really enjoyable
> process but it will end all the criticism that spatial mode has
> attracted in the press as well as providing the most innovative and
> advanced file manager out there! 

I don't see how having these settings is better than letting people use
the navigation mode if that fits their folder setup / tasks better.

-Seth

-- 
seth nickell :: interaction designer :: red hat