[Unity-design] What do we do with the file manager?

[Xavier Guillot]

Hello,

The missing (and removed, not just hidden) features in the new Nautilus 
that Ubuntu has imho to "patch" :

- Extra Pane Mode (F3)

- Status bar : for me it is absolutely necessary and useful to know in 
just one second number of elements in a folder and free space available, 
without having to do "Properties" on context menu. And the free space is 
no more visible on the floating bar.

- Tree view : I use it a lot, as I have a very hierarchical organization 
of folders, with many sub-folders. And I need to see the tree to move 
files to another folder with drag and drop directly.

- Some icons (Up, address bar location...).

- Global menu : problem with HUD, global user experience (all 
applications have the menu in the top left), bookmarks no more available 
here : as I put sometimes tree view, I also need a very quick access to 
bookmarks. I do not use the defaults "Images", "Documents"... places as 
I organize my files by activity (Personal, Work, Friends...), not by 
type, so I've a lot of bookmarks which need quick and common access.

- I also discovered another necessary missing detail : dev' removed the 
hour in the date, both in the list view and in the window which opens 
when I copy files, in case of 2 documents have the same name !!!

Now if the 2 documents have been saved on the same day but not the same 
hour, I do not know which is the more recent, which I should keep or 
replace.

I do lots of copy between computers (with USB), folders, I don't use the 
cloud and synchronization for everywhere, just for backups, now I'm not 
able anymore to do simple file copies... It's perhaps not the "good" way 
to use computer, but it's mine. And there is no a "make code simple" 
reason for this...

I didn't find, for the moment, the possibility, on the config files or 
so (dconf), to add back the hour (hh:mm) in date :(


I understand the aim of Gnome developers to have clean code, easy-to-use 
program, but here in Quantal Nautilus is no more a full file manager, 
it's a pity.

OK, way to use computer is different, with Zeitgeist and Unity Dash / 
Lenses for example in many cases a file manager is no more essential, 
but in many others it's useful, and I'm accustomed to it, like many users.

So as alternative there is Marlin (now Pantheon), but it has not all the 
functions and nice look Nautilus had until last version, too.

Nemo, the Linux Mint fork ? It depends what they aim to do. For the 
moment, it's Nautilus 3.4.2 with also some missing features, mainly due 
to the change of name and lack of configuration. For example, what does 
not work in Nemo :

- No "Compress" command for archiving with File Roller in the context menu

- No option like nautilus-actions as open-terminal in a specific folder

- No green or blue icon under the folder icon in Ubuntu One or Dropbox 
to indicate state of synchronization

I hope Ubuntu will make a good choice on this, as a complete file 
manager is still needed.

Best regards,

Xavier

On 09-08-12 13:36, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
>
>> Nautilus 3.4 is the safest bet out there (feature and stability 
>> wise), however it has that horrid chopped down right sided toolbar 
>> and the back and forward on the right and neither of those two are 
>> even remotely good looking.
> It would be easy enough to tweak it, but staying on an old 
> unmaintained version of nautilus is not a solution going forward.
>> Nautilus 3.6 is pretty, however it is terrible chopped down feature 
>> wise and doesn't fit Ubuntu and Unity at all (super-menu and no 
>> menubar, hence no appmenu => no HUD, light toolbar (and all other 
>> apps have dark ones).
> We could probably hack around and push the popup menu content to the 
> HUD if that's the only issue, the problem is that it's not the only 
> change so far (the drop of the menu means we have no "desktop menu" on 
> empty desktops at the moment, they dropped compact view, treeview 
> sidepanel, the lack of menubar looks weird in unity, etc)
>
>> Nemo is the new kid on the block and that's pretty much all that's 
>> known about it.
> it's basically a fork of nautilus 3.4 no?
>
>> Marlin is the prettiest file manager there is out there, however it 
>> does lack stability (and maybe a features - MAYBE) and *needs */a 
>> lot/ manpower.
>>
>>
> The elementary guys worked on top of marlin for this own file manager 
> as well:
> https://launchpad.net/pantheon-files
>
>
> Sebastien Bacher
>
>

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