Recent Spatial Changes

[TravisNewman]

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=23421

Just wondering what the community here thinks of this.
I personally set the prefs manually to go back to the old way, because this breaks the entire purpose of spatial for me.

[stoffe]

Well, first off it took me completely by sursprise. I thought something had broken somewhere and almost went on a long bughunt or maybe a revert before I thought to check the forums. This is something that bites me time after time. I always glance through the list in Synaptic before I do the update, but I can't see any changelogs there, and I don't want to have to look up webpages for this. Ideally, in my view, at least major changes should be listed along with the description of what the package does. Of course it may be hard to diff these things when upgrading several versions, but then I'd at least have some kind of chance to see a thing like this.

At least some way of getting fair warnings before something like this happens is something of a must for anything that aims to be professional. I wonder how many are gonna at least think of reporting this as a bug the week to come... chalk one down on me if you are gonna keep the count.

About the change itself then, I don't think I like it. I didn't like spatial navigation much for a long time, but forced myself to give it a good chance. And well, really, I do think I like the way Explorer or Commanders do it, different for different tasks, but it wasn't all that bad once you got used to it either. :)

But this new change just made everything strange. It feels buggy, because windows jump everywhere, especially since it seems to do it very slowly. I've a rather fresh machine here that does nothing else, and it still takes a noticably long time to open the new, close the last window. And the whole usefulness of spatiality was that you have several windows that you move stuff between, now it is neither good navigation, nor good managing, somehow. It just feels weird, and it feels like a paper product; somthing someone has sat on their chamber and thought out without actually trying it. It doesn't fix anything, really, but it confuses those already used to the old way.

[darrenadams]

As soon as I discovered what had happened, the first thing I did was change the behaviour back.

But after reading that thread, what bugs me is that there was no explanation as to why this kind of change was made. To me, it hasn't improved the spatial Nautilus "experience" in any way and, try as I might, I couldn't think how this would help new or existing users. The timing of this change is unusual too. Why not leave this until after Hoary was released?

A number of other things too:


Why was this behaviour made the default?
Why isn't there a UI change to go with the code change, to allow users to change this (I'm thinking back to when Nautilus 2.6 didn't provide a UI to let users revert to browser mode)?


Anyway, that's how I feel.

[TravisNewman]

There doesn't seem to be a UI to change the behavior, no.

[kassetra]

After 12 years in user interface design and research, I can tell you without a doubt that feature changes made in the last two weeks of a release are 97% of the time the ones that people hate and throw rampant fits about.

The rule is: don't do it. Do not make feature changes within 14 days of a release. Period.

With that being said, I really think this feels more like step 1 or 2 of an N step process that's supposed to take spatial nautilus *somewhere* ... The first couple of steps in any process that shifts features from X to Y always feels buggy, poorly-executed, and awkward. Seeing the comments so far only solidifies my feelings about what is going on.

It's very possible that after the last step in this feature migration you all will love it and wonder how you did without it - but adding the first couple of steps at the end of a product stage stinks of developer need over usefullness.

[telmo]

Well... i LOVE IT! I didn't use spacial because my middle mouse button is to hard for me to double click it everytime. So now i can use spacial browsing. :)

[primeirocrime]

humm...I've must of done something wrong here...I don't get a lot of windows opened. just one that reverts to whatever dir I select. It's just like the browsing but with less clogging. But it feels strange. I really miss tabs in nautilus. That would be a nice feature...does anyone know if this is possible?

salut from me

[kassetra]

I really miss tabs in nautilus. That would be a nice feature...does anyone know if this is possible?

Well, I never had tabs in Nautilus, nor can I use the spatial settings without a massive amount of swearing - but - I do know that Nautilus is extendable, meaning you can write your own scripts and plugins for it. :)

Many of the functions Nautilus has currently are simply plugins. :)

[Mike Douglas]

It breaks spatial, it turns Nautilus into a mediocre file browser instead of a file manager.

[kassetra]

It breaks spatial, it turns Nautilus into a mediocre file browser instead of a file manager.

Technically, Nautilus has two distinct styles - an Awesome File Browser and a Spatial File Manager.

Personally, I use the File Browser for everything, including File Management tasks all the time.

But I think what you're saying is that the change turns the spatial settings from being purely file manager and nothing more to a hybrid file manager-browser?

[primeirocrime]

Well, I never had tabs in Nautilus, nor can I use the spatial settings without a massive amount of swearing - but - I do know that Nautilus is extendable, meaning you can write your own scripts and plugins for it. :)

Many of the functions Nautilus has currently are simply plugins. :)

hummmm....must dig deeper on that. Until then I'll have to do with what I can do with my 10 lazy fingers and the keyboard. Right know I'm going to read your new cookbook and see if I satisfy this ungodly hunger.

[kassetra]

hummmm....must dig deeper on that. Until then I'll have to do with what I can do with my 10 lazy fingers and the keyboard. Right know I'm going to read your new cookbook and see if I satisfy this ungodly hunger.

hmmmm... now I might just have to post more of my recipes to see if we can get ya full. :)

[CowPie]

Spatial is yucky anyways 8) What do the changes look like?

[kassetra]

Spatial is yucky anyways 8) What do the changes look like?

Well... I'd say that using either Spatial or Browser requires that you *think* like each mode operates.

I don't think like Spatial - therefore, using spatial to me is like not having the turn signals, gears, etc. being marked in my car... I'd be a mess!

And for people that don't think like the Browser - it would be like if they set down a stack of papers and then went to get them from the same place and they're not there - they're over on another desk!

[bigzak]

Just wondering what the community here thinks of this.
I personally set the prefs manually to go back to the old way, because this breaks the entire purpose of spatial for me.

To be honest, when it first started happening I thought something was broken and tried various changes, killing nautilus, checking the configuration editor to see if I'd accidentally set an option, that kind of thing.

The whole point of the browser mode is that you have everything 'right there'. The menus, each folder as it is opened, the tree, etc... That is good.

The whole point of the spatial mode is that you have everything where you last left it. If you open a folder, then another, you have both folders. That is also good.

I use the spatial mode. I like it.

This change feels like a step back towards the Browser mode, which is still available anyway, and at the same time destroying the spatial mode. If I want a folder open, and its parent, I don't want to have to go System->Home->Documents->SomeFolder, then have to go System->Home->Documents again because Documents was automatically discarded. If I didn't want the home folder, I could either middle click Documents to get rid, close it manually, or select 'close parents' from the Documents window. Either way, it's MY CHOICE. If I didn't want it to work that way, I could just use the browser mode.

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm dead set against this change. I think I would have been more amiable if the configuration editor option had been a) automatically added, b) set to some sensible default that DID NOT change behaviour unexpectedly, and c) was named something that was actually descriptive of its function.

End users get fidgety when something happens that they don't expect. Maybe an email ends up filtered for no readily explained reason, or a document window disappears without a trace. Or nautilus starts magically closing windows like it never has before, with no mention of such behaviour on the official GNOME site. Either way, they don't like it.

[gylf]

If I didn't want it to work that way, I could just use the browser mode.

Exactly. I've yet to read a single justification for this change. How does this make Ubuntu better?

[TravisNewman]

That's the thing of it, isn't it?
It DOESN'T make anything better. It makes it very counter-intuitive. Maybe kass is right, and this is a step toward something big, but that should be implemented over time, and not before a major release. If this is NOT a step toward something, and an attempt at a quick fix of an annoyance some people have, then this is a major problem. If they want to make it default to browser mode, fine, but if they screw with spatial mode, with no way to change the behavior (at least, to the novice there is no way) then people are going to be getting upset.

[Wolki]

That's the thing of it, isn't it?
It DOESN'T make anything better. It makes it very counter-intuitive. Maybe kass is right, and this is a step toward something big, but that should be implemented over time, and not before a major release. If this is NOT a step toward something, and an attempt at a quick fix of an annoyance some people have, then this is a major problem. If they want to make it default to browser mode, fine, but if they screw with spatial mode, with no way to change the behavior (at least, to the novice there is no way) then people are going to be getting upset.

Well, it makes one thing better: it unifies the interface. When you left-click on a link in a webbrowser, it will open the new page *instead* of the old one, when you middle-click it will open the new page *in addition to* the old one. With old spatial Nautilus, it was the exact opposite, and for no obvious reason. New spatial Nautilus keeps the whole spatial metaphor (that a window and a folder are the same) and all its benefits (like remembering the size and placement of the window) while making the behavior of different applications more similar to each other. In my eyes, that's a good thing.
That said, it will definitely take some time to get used to again.

IMHO, one of the problems of current and old spatial Nautilus is that double-middleclicking is physically hard and feels very exhausting to my hand. Sure, changing that to single-click is really easy, but the default matters.

I hope the Ubuntu developers will give us an easy way to change between old and new versions by the time final is here.

[TravisNewman]

That's what browser mode is for. File management is much different from web browsing, and if MS hadn't decided that they should be done the same way, we probably wouldn't have moved away from spatial (remember when Windows 95 had spatial?). Browsers are like reading a book. You click back to go to the previous page you viewed, you click forward to go to the page you viewed after the current one. Granted, it's an INTERACTIVE book, but the information presented is similar. File management, however, is not like a book. It's hierarchical. This is what spatial is for. Granted, the choice between browser and spatial is nice, but making spatial more like browser is decreasing the amount of choice the user has, unless they add a convenient menu to disable this (or preferably, to enable it. This, IMO, would be more confusing than regular spatial, since it seems like the one window keeps jumping around all over the place. If the window stayed the same, it WOULD BE BROWSER, just without the functionality of Browser).
If they wanted to do it that way, why not just make browser mode the default, so people can change to spatial as it is, without having to do manual editing?

[Wolki]

That's what browser mode is for.
If they wanted to do it that way, why not just make browser mode the default, so people can change to spatial as it is, without having to do manual editing?

No, browser mode is for opening everything in the *same* window. Spatial mode is for spatial metaphor, which you can implement in different ways. We are used to the one mode that was used till now, but it is not necessarily the right one. Neither is the new one, but it has its points, mainly that even different things should behave equally if they can.

[TravisNewman]

OK I see your point, but this implementation doesn't work. I KNOW what's going on and it's still confusing when windows fly around all over the place. If they're on the way toward something, I'm all ears, but if not, this was a major mistake.

My point is, Web Browsing shouldn't match File Management in BOTH Browser mode AND Spatial mode. Browser mode is for matching up web browsing-- they should add the ability to use middle-click to open a new window in Browser mode and not bork spatial mode by making it more like a browser.

[Wolki]

OK I see your point, but this implementation doesn't work. I KNOW what's going on and it's still confusing when windows fly around all over the place. If they're on the way toward something, I'm all ears, but if not, this was a major mistake.

I think that is because you are used to Gnome behaving in a certain way. Every interface change - especially changes to basic behavior - will feel weird for some time. But you can't make something better and still have it the same way.


My point is, Web Browsing shouldn't match File Management in BOTH Browser mode AND Spatial mode. Browser mode is for matching up web browsing-- they should add the ability to use middle-click to open a new window in Browser mode and not bork spatial mode by making it more like a browser.

OK, imho Browser mode is not for matching a web browser, but for navigational file management and things like tree views. I think a user has the right to expect that different things work the same way as much as they can, as long as the fundamental differences are kept intact.

Then again, the new mode seems quite inconsistent; middle clicking a file will open it and close the nautilus window, while left clicking it will open a new weindow and keep the old one - completely the opposite of how clicking on folders works. But switching that would result in many complaints, i think. ^^;;;

I love spatial, it's one of the things that i like best about gnome and that keep me from using file managers that feel more powerful. But it's still a mess imho, because it tends to clutter fast. Neither new nor old way are the optimum, but i like that people are starting to think about it again and try new ideas.

But i would surely agree that the time for this change - a few days before the release of a stable version - was chosen wrongly.

[emperor]

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=23421

Just wondering what the community here thinks of this.
I personally set the prefs manually to go back to the old way, because this breaks the entire purpose of spatial for me.

I prefer the new "hack" to contol the spatial menu mess!

It is really quite intuititive to use the "selected folder \/" to go back a folder or two.
Much improved is my vote.

I hate having the continuous trail of open folders just to get to a single one. Then I had to close all that mess! So I say, GOOD Idea!

Someone thought about this tweak more than the Gnome boys did, besides look at the menu nightmere they handed us this time around in version 2.10!

[bigzak]

I prefer the new "hack" to contol the spatial menu mess!


Each to his own, but it should not have been made the default (for reasons I cited earlier) and it should not have been released without a way of changing it!


It is really quite intuititive to use the "selected folder \/" to go back a folder or two.

It is even more intuitive to just switch back to the other window. What is not intuitive is clicking a folder and the entire window disappearing, with another, differently sized window appearing over the other side of the screen.

As I recall, Windows 95 spatial had two modes that were basically 'default to one window' or 'default to many windows'. In nautilus, this option would not just switch the actions of the middle and left buttons; it would also prevent windows disappearing and reappearing all over the place by putting them all in the same physical window.

See ROX Filer for a file manager that works in this way. I could live with this (as long as I could change it if I wanted). However, the current hack (which it is) looks more like a bug than a new feature. I won't be surprised if we see
Bug#19834 Nautilus windows disappear whenever I do anything :neutral:



I hate having the continuous trail of open folders just to get to a single one. Then I had to close all that mess! So I say, GOOD Idea!

Ctrl-Shift-W or File->Close Parents. Closes all the parent windows that you opened on your way to the current one.

Once again, I have no qualms in having both these modes. However, the implications should have been thought through much better, the interface should have been tidied up, and it should not have been included at such a late stage with no apparent way of changing it back (even to someone who dares look in the gconf pref editor!)

[az]

If this cannot be resolved, what does this say about the Ubuntu community?

[bigzak]

From reading the bug reports, it is already resolved. There is no intention of removing it because it is a pet project.

With this change, Ubuntu is the only operating system IN THE WORLD that has a multi-window file manager that actually closes opened windows without the user's say so. Windows either uses multiple windows or one window. So does Mac OS. So do other Linux file managers. So does nautilus, on other operating systems... you get the idea.

The concern is that the response to the otherwise excellent Hoary Hedgehog will be "looks nice, but does stupid things and they won't change it, so I'm off" Oh yes, and nautilus in the final release will behave fundamentally differently to the preview release that many people have tried. How's that for consistency?

Time will tell...

[poofyhairguy]

One command is all it takes to end the problems with Spatial Nautilus once and for all!!!!


gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true


Should be the default.

[TravisNewman]

I have to agree with you there.

Though I would just immediately change it back to spatial.

I think spatial should be default, but that's just me-- in the grand scheme of things, making browser the default and leaving spatial untouched would seriously be the best of ideas.

This is the FIRST TIME that I've ever been unhappy with a way that Ubuntu has deviated from vanilla Gnome

[tvelocity]

Hi, new user here. Have been following the forum for some time now, and thought that it was about time to post 8-)


This is the FIRST TIME that I've ever been unhappy with a way that Ubuntu has deviated from vanilla Gnome

I totaly agree with you on that. It is also the first time that Ubuntu's deviation from vanilla Gnome actually breaks the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines. :-k


Make Your Application Consistent

Make your application consistent with itself and with other applications, in both its appearance and its behavior. This is one of the most important design principles, and probably the most famous, but it is also frequently ignored. While this document serves as the basis for consistency between GNOME applications, you are encouraged to look at and follow other application's conventions where this document provides no guidelines.

Consistency enables users to apply their existing knowledge of their computing environment and other applications to understanding a new application. This not only allows users to become familiar with new applications more quickly, but also helps create a sense of comfort and trust in the overall environment. Most of the recommendations in the GNOME HI Guidelines are designed to help you create applications that are consistent with the GNOME environment and other GNOME applications.

A word of caution: a mis-applied or incomplete consistency is often worse than inconsistency. If your application includes an Undo menu item for consistency, but it is always disabled because your application does not actually support Undo, this will reduce the user's trust in the availability of Undo in other applications on their desktop. Either make your application support Undo, or eliminate the Undo menu item.

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/principles-consistency.html

[UbuWu]

I like the new behaviour... I only miss a button to go to the parent directory in one click instead of the now necessay two clicks.

[TravisNewman]

I totaly agree with you on that. It is also the first time that Ubuntu's deviation from vanilla Gnome actually breaks the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines. :-k


Never though about that, but yeah, you're right.

[Poyayan]

Ok fine change the default. But at least make it standard. Double click on a file in a window and a program that opens the file appears, folder window remains. Now double click with the middle mouse and the file is opened but the folder window is closed... Try opening a .txt file (should use gedit by default) and you can easily see what I'm talking about
-Poyayan

[TravisNewman]

crap, I hadn't even noticed that.

That. Sucks. Hard.

[tvelocity]

Ok fine change the default. But at least make it standard. Double click on a file in a window and a program that opens the file appears, folder window remains. Now double click with the middle mouse and the file is opened but the folder window is closed... Try opening a .txt file (should use gedit by default) and you can easily see what I'm talking about
-Poyayan

That was exactly what i had in mind when i pasted the URL from the Gnome HIG. And i'm pretty much sure that there are loads of other inconsistencies besides that one. That's why this new behaviour is totaly unacceptable to me.

[bigzak]

This is the FIRST TIME that I've ever been unhappy with a way that Ubuntu has deviated from vanilla Gnome

It's also the first time a distribution's auto-update feature has made me think 'WTF?' and have to trawl the 'net in search of a 'fix' for the feature.

I expect that from Windows. Not from any Linux distro.

[Brunellus]

if I disable spatial browsing, though, I shouldn't have this problem, right?

[poofyhairguy]

if I disable spatial browsing, though, I shouldn't have this problem, right?

right. Plain nautilus is an ex-windows user's dream.

[Brunellus]

OK, good.

I don't use spatial browsing with Nautilus because I was sick of the trail of windows it left littering my desktop. I haven't got RAM to burn, after all.

[aledin]

It's also the first time a distribution's auto-update feature has made me think 'WTF?' and have to trawl the 'net in search of a 'fix' for the feature.

I expect that from Windows. Not from any Linux distro.

Please, leave out this patch from the release version.
Its effects are worst than the problems that it try to resolve (inconsistence with the gnome mouse buttons paradigma, worst file copy experience between directories, ecc...).

I fear that, if not leave out, there'll be an Ubuntu derivative distro called NoPatchuntu. ;)

[bigzak]

I fear that, if not leave out, there'll be an Ubuntu derivative distro called NoPatchuntu. ;)

Nah, that sounds too much like a Pokemon

[mark]

I tried the spatial mode when it first came out (back in my Fedora/Gnome 2.6 days), hated it then & made sure I found out how to set the default to browser mode. So, I've missed all the excitement. Being curious, I just switched back to spatial to see what all the shootin's about and - whoa! You double-middle-click on a file, it opens the file with the associated app and closes the parent window?

I'm sorry, I don't care if this is somebody's pet project - this seriously wrong, especially just 2 days (my local time) from Hoary release.

As I mentioned, I default to browser mode, so I personally have no ox to gore, but - does anybody have a name or an email address where strong pleas for reconsideration could be sent? This could be a major "let's shoot ourselves in the foot, just when things are going so well" moment.

panickedthumb? Anybody?

[TravisNewman]

I agree with the shooting ourselves in the foot comment.

Unfortunately, I have no clue who to contact. The SABDFL (Self Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life, Mark Shuttleworth) wanted this done, so it's done. If I read that correctly, that is.

[mark]

Yeah, I got that impression from browsing bugzilla. Well, when all else fails - I just sent an email directly to him. The outcome remains to be seen...

[TravisNewman]

Yeah, I got that impression from browsing bugzilla. Well, when all else fails - I just sent an email directly to him. The outcome remains to be seen...
Ya know, I never thought of that ;)

[emperor]

The SABDFL (Self Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life, Mark Shuttleworth) wanted this done, so it's done. If I read that correctly, that is.

If this is true, then:
this attitude and the underling servitude it demands will surely kill Ubuntu in the end. If the "owner" does not care what his "customers" think, the business will die. Of course in this case it's his money and the customers get the product for free. But Linux users are fickeled enough without driving them away. Looks like a new logo may need to be created to more accurately reflect the "community" or lack their of. Instead of 5 people holding hands in a circle maybe it should be 4 people bowing down to a single master.

My hope is that this is NOT true!

Maybe panickedthumb is just panicked!

[duff]

I haven't got anything new to add...just another frustrated & confused user. So, after restarting GDM, reboot, and look all over nautilus preferences and gconf, like most of us, I came here to find the bug report. I can't believe this is a feature! Most of us have been using spacial nautilus since it debuted in 2.6 about a year ago, and we've either gotten used to it or changed a the gconf key (important point..there was an option to change back!) Hard coding the key bindings' into doing reverse actions just boggles my mind. Note to devs: if this is an attempt to help newbs hows about adding a setup wizard the first time GNOME is loaded? Then they can choose browser/spacial and whatever else.

[Brunellus]

If this is true, then:
this attitude and the underling servitude it demands will surely kill Ubuntu in the end. If the "owner" does not care what his "customers" think, the business will die. Of course in this case it's his money and the customers get the product for free. But Linux users are fickeled enough without driving them away. Looks like a new logo may need to be created to more accurately reflect the "community" or lack their of. Instead of 5 people holding hands in a circle maybe it should be 4 people bowing down to a single master.

My hope is that this is NOT true!

Maybe panickedthumb is just panicked!


...but this sort of power relationship works really really well for Microsoft, and hardly anyone complains about that!

[TravisNewman]

It's just what I read on the ubuntu-dev list.