Re: What I think spatial nautilus needs

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_ freenet de>]

On Thu, May 27, 2004 at 01:48:24PM +0200, Sigge Kotliar wrote:
> Hello people!
> 
> I think everyone agrees that one of the most annoying thing to do for a
> power user is having to switch between using the keyboard and the mouse
> while doing stuff. 

Sometimes, yes.

> That is why Emacs and Vi have their keyboard-shortcut
> tools, and so on...

And all the time I thought it's because they're console apps ...


> Since spatial nautilus is much of a mouse tool than a keyboard (it's
> much more convenient to use the mouse stuff) I have here written down a
> list of stuff I'd like to see to make nautilus 2.8 a killer app:
> 
> 1) Mouse gestures. 
> After having opened ca 10-15 folders, and not wanting to have to switch
> to the keyboard to use CTRL-SHIFT-W I have to close each window by
> clicking the X in the top right corner... not that smooth... A mouse
> gesture to close the current folder, and one to close ALL folders would
> be nice.
> Same thing with moving to some different location. There should be a way
> to activate the CTRL-L feature (more about that in point 2) with the
> mouse.
> Of course, stuff like opening the parent folder and such should also be
> accessible with the mouse. 
> Now - for the not-so-power users, the most common mouse gestures could
> appear as a small panel of some sort somewhere (other suggestions
> welcome)

It's all in the menu (accessible per mouse).

Closing a window is easy enough with the mouse. Closing parent windows 
is more of an advanced option, so I don't think it should be exposed 
in front row.

Open Location makes you switch to keyboard anyway ...

Mouse gestures are not discoverable and not exactly simple to do right.

Spatial Nautilus windows must be kept simple and clean, because their 
content is the important thing, and they shouldn't take too much space 
since the user will have mayn of them open at once at times. Therefor 
are toolbar would be problematic. Icons could be placed in the menu 
row, but I guess that would be rather confusing and might look crowded.
Learning the shortcuts is better anyway, and they can all be done with 
one hand (while the other stays on the mouse).

 
> 2) Make CTRL-L use the file selector
> This would be good for all users as such a feature would allow easier
> browsing to far away locations, not require knowing exact location fof
> different folders, not require using the keyboard and allow for the use
> of the GTK bookmarks (see point 3)


The file selector is so big and complicated compared to the Open Location 
dialog. And personaly, I have to say it feels terrible slow, while 
Open Location is simple, fast and beautyful.
If you want to access 'far away locations' and don't know about exact 
locations, just use Nautilus itself!

For reusing bookmarks from file selector they should be rather found 
in a folder that might be on the destop or find a place in the panel.
 
> 3) Bookmarks, bookmarks, bookmarks
> They should be placed at the following locations: "Places" menu and
> "Computer" (other suggestions welcome)
> Of course, these bookmarks should be the same bookmarks as GTK now
> creates, for nice cross-DE integration.

Bookmarks have no place in the spatial Nautilus menu, because there's 
no relation to the represented folder. (Having Places there is a mistake, 
IMHO).
Having shortcuts and the ability to put arbitrary folders into the panel 
would make for nice bookmark functionality.


---
Thorsten Wilms