Re: ftp and Nautilus

["John Keller" <jkeller matchbox fr>]

Thorsten Wilms wrote:
> On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 03:24:21PM +0100, Laszlo Kovacs wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Calum was kind enough to put together a proposal for going ahead.
> >
> > It is all here:
> >
> > http://www.gnome.org/~calum/usability/specs/ftp-login/
>
> The first button version could be turned into an acceptable layout
> by aligning the 'Login In as User' button with the password field
> and making the Cancel button same width as other buttons.
>
> Allthough I brought up the button alternative, I now think that
> we're making the mistake of designing for the rare special case,
> while we should concentrate more on the norm. Using a 3rd button
> leads to lining them up verticaly, because otherwise the relations
> can't be communicated clearly (and space efficiently).
> But having only the Cancel button in the bottom button row doesn't
> feel right.
> Having a mostyl disabled control for the anonymous option
> is not a good thing. I would rather have no trace of that, when
> the option is not given. But then again Elements that might be
> present or not are hard to deal with in layout, since we don't want
> drastic changes.
>
> How many ftp sites are there, that allow both anonymous and
> non-anonymous access?
> For the rare special case it might be ok to use an additional dialog,
> just asking which kind of login to use. The username/password dialog
> could be kept clean by this way.

I think that Calum's checkbox mockup (or others' proposals to use radio
buttons) are the right direction, and I'm confident that they won't go down
the path of hiding functionality. But to play devil's advocate, I can think
of a relatively common case that will affect an "average" end-user (i.e. a
neophyte to the concept of different "entry points" via ftp): a hosted Web
site, especially in a shared-hosting environment.

By default, CPanel (one of the common tools hosts have installed for their
users' self-management) gives an anonymous account as well as allowing the
user to create special accounts. The anonymous vs. eponymous login case
earlier mentioned (different points in a tree) is very much in effect here,
as the eponymous accounts are subdirectories of the public_html directory
and the public_ftp directory is a sibling to public_html.

- John