Sounder 7 usability notes

Jeff Waugh jdub at perkypants.org
Wed Sep 1 05:40:56 CDT 2004


<quote who="Mark Shuttleworth">

> We should optimise for the common case. 90% of the time when I'm
> double-clicking on a folder inside nautilus, I want to open that window
> and close the current one. Is that typical for everyone? If so, should we
> not make it so that double-clicking opens the new folder (in spatial mode,
> remembering where it was on the desktop last time etc) and closes the
> existing folder, and holding shift or using the middle button leaves the
> current window open while opening the new one?
> 
> Straw poll: when you navigate through folder hierarchies in spatial mode,
> do you usually want to leave the old folder open, or have it closed when
> you move to the next folder?

Both, depending on what I'm doing... and when I need to *navigate* through a
lot of folders, then I use navigational mode ('Browse'). Note that a straw
poll on a list of very highly technical users is not a good way to figure
out what to do. :-)

I don't think it's correct to completely reverse the current behaviour, as
it has a pretty strong history as the expected behaviour of a spatial file
manager. There are other ways to deal with this:

 * set nautilus to use browse mode by default, so it works like Windows XP

 * choosing to use browse mode when this kind of use case crops up

 * gradual close-behind, either by number-of-windows or by timed-no-use;
   this has been done elsewhere, but I forget where it was (in fact, I think
   Scott brought it up during the Oxford meeting - Scott?)

- Jeff

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