Feature request: browsing filesystem in gnome "computer" menu

[Arnold Maestre]

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:32:05 +0000, poptones <dlist at ubuntuforums.org> wrote:
> 
> "Shift-double-click... alt-click... apple-click.. windows-click"
> 
> If it takes two hands just to open a silly folder, someone needs to
> rethink the term "usability."

Use double-middle-click, then ;)

Seriously, changing which button you use cannot be *that* difficult.
 
> Software that "forces" the user is not user-friendly - it's the
> opposite. It's coercion, and not the compiler kind; It's
> anti-libertarian. It might be simple, but so is a cardboard box.

Ok, I'll leave the cardboard metaphor alone... Come on. Software
always forces some choices on users. Unless it's a incredible mess
with 3.14 billions of configurable buttons, which is not what I'd call
"usable". MS Windows 95 forced me to use their silly navigation
metaphor, whereas I was used to GEM's spatial navigation on my Atari
ST. These are all choices. The point is, are those choices relevant ?
In this case, you seem to think they aren't, and some think they are.
So what ?

Should we make it configurable, like you suggest ? I don't think so.
Configuration is tricky, it's something for the technically minded. A
few years ago, when I tried to make people switch from IE to mozilla
1.0, they would just yield because it was "too complicated". Of
course, everything was secure and powerful and configurable. But Joe
User does not want a 1.200 items, tree-like configuration menu. So
they would just go back to the big blue "e" on the desktop.

>From a non-technical user's point of view, navigation buttons are also
difficult to grasp. Why is it that "up" and "back" almost always give
the same result, but not always ?

Should we keep the address bar ? I don't think so, neither. Most
people don't ever look at it, and I don't speak about writing anything
inside it. And most of those that would are technically savvy enough
to put nautilus into whichever mode they prefer. Actually, if you
*need* an address bar that bad, hit ctrl+L, here it is, where do you
want to go today, sir ?

A possibility would be to have a "first time wizard", like Mandrake's
"drakfirsttime", which would allow a new user to fix those kinds of
preferences, like browser or spatial, pop or imap, vi or emacs and
whatnot. But leave the configuration menus alone.

Remainder: the Gconf tool is easily accessible from Ubuntu's menu.
>From here, search nautilus, choose preferences, select
always_use_brower (the effect of the key is documented in your choosen
language). You'll only need to do this once.
-- 
Arnold Maestre