Re: Fw: [Bug 136055] Changed - When paste a folder with another same name folder, files in original folder will be deleted

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 12:15:26PM -0700, Ryan McDougall wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-03-04 at 05:42 -0600, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 05:35:52AM -0600, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> > > On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 11:51:42AM +0100, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 2004-03-04 at 09:06, 任延强 wrote:
> > > > > This bug had been reported many times and still in nautilus 2.4.x and
> > > > > 2.5.x. Doesn't anyone think it is a critical problem? 
> > > > 
> > > > Its not obvious that this is a bug, but rather a question of different
> > > > behaviours and what you're used to. Both MacOS and Unix has always had
> > > > the behaviour that nautilus currently has (try doing the same operation
> > > > you did in the shell). Of course, it does give problems for people who
> > > > are used to the way windows does this. Unfortunately a misunderstanding
> > > > about this behaviour can cause loss of data, so its a bit dangerous.
> > > > 
> > > > Maybe we should switch to the window behaviour?
> > > 
> > > You might offer renaming as the default action.
> > > 
> > > Neither MacOS/Unix nor Windows behavior would make sense if you were
> > > doing the same thing with physical folders.
> > 
> > Of course, renaming would not make sense with physical folders either, but
> > it's closer to how you might think of the situation. You'd have the folder
> > named "Foo" here, and the other folder named "Foo" there. Then you might
> > call them "This Foo" and "That Foo", or "Foo" and "the other Foo" to rename
> > just one.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Greg
> 
> But if the two Foo folders represented the same semantic entity, ie
> "Pictures of my Uncle Ted" one would be very inclined to dump the
> contents of one of the folders into the other, and toss the useless
> folder out -- in effect merging the two.
> 
> What I would like to see in the case of moving Folder B to folder A
> which contains its own folder B is: instead of "Would you like to
> replace it?", something along the lines of "Folder A already has a
> folder called B. Would you like to merge the two folders, or rename the
> incoming folder?" with [Merge], [Rename] buttons. In the case where
> there are files ./B/X and ./A/B/X I think there should be an auto-rename
> to ./A/B/X and ./A/B/X-1
> 
> Comments?

If we used MS Word for email, I could prove that I considered that. :-)
I fear the alert would be too daunting if it included another command.
Recall that Cancel should also be there, so the alert would be:

  +----------------------------------------------+
  |  .       BIG BOLD LETTERS WARNING            |
  | /!\      Little letters explaining Rename    |
  | """      Little letters explaining Merge     |
  |                                              |
  |         [ Merge ]   [ Cancel ]  [[ Rename ]] |
  +----------------------------------------------+

Unlike with the similar "Save before closing" alert, it's may be harder
to see what the consequences of the Merge command would be, because the
data to be affected may not be visible. The folder with the same name
could be scrolled out of view or not visible at all if its parent folder
isn't open. While users intending to merge folders should have little
problem, those who were unaware of the name clash may be quite confused.

Merge, Replace, and Rename are all destructive, but to different degrees.
With Rename, one loses the original filename, but should be able to
recover it easily. With Merge, the organization of the files is lost,
but can be recovered if the user recalls which file was where. With
Replace, one has to remember all the data in the lost files, or hope
that "undelete" tools are understandable and effective.

But merging folders piecewise could be tedious. Perhaps there should
be a tool to automate it. This might be a large dialog or a small app
like this:

  +-----------+----------------+-----------+-+
  | Folder A  |  Merged Folder | Folder B  | | ( Last column
  +-----------+----------------+-----------+-+   is a scrollbar )
  | File1     ->  File1        |           |^|
  |           |   File2       <-     File2 |#|
  | File3     ->  File3 *     <-     File3 |#| ( *  "Same file" icon)
  | File4 [R] | [Use A][Use B] | [R] File4 | | ([R] Rename butcon)
  ~           ~                ~           ~ ~
  | FileN     ->  FileN        |           |v|
  +-----------+----------------+-----------+-+
                        [ Cancel ] [[ Merge ]]

This tool might spring up when the user clicks on "Merge..." in the
name clash alert. (Ellipses added to indicate more input needed.)
As a small app (probably better, since modeless), the Cancel and
Merge buttons would be eliminated and the effects would be
instantaneous. (The three column design is just the first that
came to mind. Other forms may be better.)

In summary, I considered that the alert could include a Merge command,
but chose not to mention it because:
  (1) it makes the alert more daunting;
  (2) with completely automated merging, information could be lost; and
  (3) a complete solution, showing merge consequences and allowing
      conflict resolution, requires a complex dialog or new app.


Cheers,
Greg