Feature request: browsing filesystem in gnome "computer" menu

[Scott James Remnant]

On Fri, 2004-11-19 at 10:03 -0800, George Farris wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-19-11 at 12:22 -0500, Dmitriy Kropivnitskiy wrote:
> > OK, I agree with most of what you are saying. I do not think that
> > opening a window and closing the parent is the most used feature of
> > nautilus.
> 
> Possibly you are right and if browser mode would remember window
> positions, sizes and the like, I believe GNOME would cater to most of
> the crowd and many people would be happier.
> 
Double-click the Computer icon, and resize that window, and close it.
Then double-click again, should that load the browser in the same place
it was last time?

Ok, probably.

Now double-click the Home icon, resize that window, and close it.  Then
double-click again, should that load the browser in the same place it
was last time?

Probably too.

Now double-click the Computer icon again.  Which set of settings should
that follow?  What about if you choose the Network icon instead?  Where
do those settings come from?


And what happens if you double-click the Computer icon, and navigate to
the Home directory within that browser, and close it.  Do you then open
the Home icon's window in that location, or the last location a window
was left after double-clicking the Home icon?


Are desktop icons and panel options just launchers for separate "file
manager" applications with different starting points?  So these are
special, and different to the icons *inside* the file manager window.
Why don't they look any different?

Or is there one file manager application, and the icons simply change
where it points?  If that's the case then you can only ever have *one*
file manager application window open at a time, otherwise it wouldn't be
obvious why some icons (like on the desktop or panel) open a new window,
and others (like in the window) don't.


You can't just pick and mix what bits you like, that way leads UI-hell.
Decide on *one* set of rules, and stick to them.  Nautilus is extremely
consistent.


One of the main complaints about spatial is that it leaves a lot of
windows open if you navigate into a deep directory hierarchy.

The sexiest way of solving that is to have the parent windows fade and
vanish if you don't use them, so you just double-click your way down the
tree and the parents quietly vanish.  (Yay composite).

If you wanted the window, the fading will make you panic and
whack-a-mole it, bring it back to life and stopping it going away.


The other main complaint is that it simply doesn't act like an
application, some people just can't cope with the idea that folders are
first-class objects and equal ranking to applications.

If that's your gripe, use the browse mode, that's what it's there for.
Hopefully after the above you'll realise there's no sane set of policy
for window placement, but you could always make your own launcher with
"nautilus --browser --geometry=512x320+100+100" or similar.

Scott
-- 
Scott James Remnant
scott at canonical.com
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