[SOLVED] Isn't gFTP deprecated?

[Marco Bonetti]

I think we should keep both of them:
+ imho MacOS X users should be fine with the nautilus ftp capability, as it's
similar to the Finder's one
+ on the other edge I think that a windows user is more familiar with the
concept of using a tool different from the explorer

bye

[Tollef Fog Heen]

* Julien Olivier

| julien@lifebook ~ $ which gftp
| /usr/bin/gftp
| julien@lifebook ~ $ LANG=en_GB sudo apt-get remove gftp
| Reading Package Lists... Done
| Building Dependency Tree... Done
| Package gftp is not installed, so not removed
| 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 12 not upgraded.
|
| Any clue about what's happening here ?

: tfheen@shonap ~ > dpkg -S =gftp
gftp-common: /usr/bin/gftp
: tfheen@shonap ~ >

You probably want to remove gftp-common and gftp-gtk

--
Tollef Fog Heen ,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are : :' :
`. `'
`-

[Yann KLIS]

Hi,

One more thing to note. The ftp gnome-vfs module think that all ftp
server understand all the ftp commands it passes to it. But that's not
true. For example, the ftp gnome-vfs module doesn't work with my xbox
buit-in ftp server. But gftp does work with it.

++

yk


On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:25:13 +1000, Jeff Waugh <jeff.waugh@canonical.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 02:10 +0100, Martin Alderson wrote:
> > Absolutley. On second thoughts I agree with you - gFTP _is_ deprecated
> > and the space used for that could be used for something much more
> > intresting.
>
> So, I think it's important to include in SupportedSeed, because I know
> that some FTP users (particularly web developers) really prefer this
> kind of interface. But that's immediately putting it into the 'uncommon
> use' category, so you're right, we could move it out of DesktopSeed.
>
> The only thing I'd suggest here is a better interface for adding a new
> network place. We used to have a Windows-style icon in the network://
> location, but now it's just in the File menu of Nautilus windows.
>
> Would someone like to look into this for HoaryHedgehog, and work to get
> it into upstream GNOME?
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Jeff
>
> --
> Ooh, ooh, ooh! http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ Ubuntu!
>
> --
> ubuntu-devel mailing list
> ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com
> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
>

[Julien Olivier]

Le mardi 21 septembre 2004 ? 23:58 +0200, Daniel Borgmann a ?crit :
> Just a quick question. I noticed that gFTP appears in the default
> desktop installation and I'm wondering if this isn't deprecated by the
> Nautilus FTP stuff. It doesn't seem appropriate to me to use protocol-
> specific applications for file managment in the 21. century. :)
> gFTP also doesn't follow the HIG very well, exposes file paths to the
> user and hidden files are not hidden by default. Hopefully I'm not
> offending anyone, but I personally don't think that gFTP matches the
> level of polish and usability of the other desktop parts.
> My suggestion would be to not install it by default, but maybe I'm
> missing something. Please excuse me if this was discussed before
> already, I couldn't find anything in the archives.

Well, have you tried removing it ?

julien@lifebook ~ $ which gftp
/usr/bin/gftp
julien@lifebook ~ $ LANG=en_GB sudo apt-get remove gftp
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package gftp is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 12 not upgraded.

Any clue about what's happening here ?

Thanks.

--
Julien Olivier <julo@altern.org>

[Julien Olivier]

> The only thing I'd suggest here is a better interface for adding a new
> network place. We used to have a Windows-style icon in the network://
> location, but now it's just in the File menu of Nautilus windows.

I think it would be great to have a "Create a new network place" in the
desktop's context menu.

--
Julien Olivier <julo@altern.org>

[Jeff Waugh]

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 00:15 -0300, F?bio Mendes wrote:
> Are you guys considering to use gnome-control-center (with --use-shell,
> preferably) to organize user configuring apps?

Not exclusively, but it would be nice to have an easy way to open it.

> Gnome-control-center seems to a have
> perfectly decent way to quickly/easyly categorize stuff, but it's not
> used since gnome folks prefer to put all configuration apps in the same
> bag. I'll check how easly one can hack gnome-control-center, whithout
> touching the source (I'm not a C programmer!). And as new configuration
> UI comes up, the current desing will one day became unmatainable...

The number of dialogues has more to do with incremental growth and lack
of top-down design than anything else. Upstream are working on paring it
back to around 10 dialogues, hopefully losing some of the remaining root
vs. non-root distinctions along the way.

--use-shell is just another view onto the existing dialogues, so to
improve it substantially, you need to improve the whole thing anyway. :)

This is best addressed upstream, but I'm sure we can contribute to the
design/implementation process.

(Please start new threads and change the Subject when bringing up new
things, it makes it easier for everyone to track the discussion.)

Thanks,


- Jeff

--
Ooh, ooh, ooh! http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ Ubuntu!

[Fábio Mendes]

[...]
> The only thing I'd suggest here is a better interface for adding a new
> network place. We used to have a Windows-style icon in the network://
> location, but now it's just in the File menu of Nautilus windows.

Are you guys considering to use gnome-control-center (with --use-shell,
preferably) to organize user configuring apps? I think this would be a
nice place to put a small program that just handle that. IMHO gnome-
control-center is a very efficient UI to organize the user preferences
in a nice way and don't suffer the problems of a Applications + Computer
menu. Lot of people complain about the organization of gnome preferences
apps and I agree with them. The list of configuration apps is long and
it takes some effort to find the one you should need. It makes more
sense to categorize them in specific areas, but keeping the current
implementation and using submenus just seems wrong to me (have anybody
used a new version of mandrake?). Gnome-control-center seems to a have
perfectly decent way to quickly/easyly categorize stuff, but it's not
used since gnome folks prefer to put all configuration apps in the same
bag. I'll check how easly one can hack gnome-control-center, whithout
touching the source (I'm not a C programmer!). And as new configuration
UI comes up, the current desing will one day became unmatainable...

-Fabio

[Jeff Waugh]

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 02:10 +0100, Martin Alderson wrote:
> Absolutley. On second thoughts I agree with you - gFTP _is_ deprecated
> and the space used for that could be used for something much more
> intresting.

So, I think it's important to include in SupportedSeed, because I know
that some FTP users (particularly web developers) really prefer this
kind of interface. But that's immediately putting it into the 'uncommon
use' category, so you're right, we could move it out of DesktopSeed.

The only thing I'd suggest here is a better interface for adding a new
network place. We used to have a Windows-style icon in the network://
location, but now it's just in the File menu of Nautilus windows.

Would someone like to look into this for HoaryHedgehog, and work to get
it into upstream GNOME?

Thanks,

- Jeff

--
Ooh, ooh, ooh! http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ Ubuntu!

[Martin Alderson]

Absolutley. On second thoughts I agree with you - gFTP _is_ deprecated
and the space used for that could be used for something much more
intresting.

Martin


On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 20:26:23 -0400, Britt Selvitelle <britt@muchobs.com> wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 02:09 +0200, Daniel Borgmann wrote:
> > > 2) gFTP presents a very 'relevant' UI for FTP, at least in my opinion.
> > > It has things like CHMOD and similar just a menu away.
> >
> > Ugh, that's exactly what I'm talking about. :) The user should never
> > ever have to deal with terms like "chmod" in a modern GUI. After all
> > this is nothing but our good old unix file permissions and gftp doesn't
> > even care to explain this fact. It is unfortunate that Nautilus doesn't
> > support changing of file permissions on FTP servers yet, but I also
> > don't think that this is a required feature for the vast majority of
> > users.
>
> Agreed. I think this ideal perfectly follows the Gnome mantra.
>
> > I'm not aware of any obvious user-visible differences between FTP
> > locations and local locations, which would require a completely separate
> > application, using a whole new metaphor for file managment.
>
> Agreed here as well. There is a very nice trend developing in Gnome
> applications right now ... Rhythmbox will soon do audio CD burning.
> Nautilus will do data CD burning. Along these lines Nautilus should
> handle generic file transfer as well. IMO FTP falls under this category.
>
> The problem is that these features are not immediately discoverable,
> because inferior operating systems handle this differently, and people
> simply aren't used network specific file transfer in a file manager.
>
> What we really need is some type of interactive application that walks
> new users some of the coolest features of the desktop. Things like
> double-middle-click in spatial nautilus, CD burning, the concept of
> virtual-desktops, etc.
>
> > I have been
> > using Nautilus as my exclusive FTP client since many months now, even
> > though it completely sucked before 2.8 and couldn't handle
> > authentication in a sane way. If this works for me as a web developer, I
> > don't see why this shouldn't work for basic users.
> >
> > > However, I do agree with many of your sentiments and I don't really
> > > like gFTP because it is very clunky. However with a nice iconset it
> > > would intergrate much better, IMO.
> >
> > The icons certainly are the least of its problems. ;)
>
> Recently I had to help a friend FTP some files via Windows. I went
> through the process of explaining to him over the phone how to open a
> terminal and use the (very broken) commandline ftp application. As you
> can imagine, it was not fun :)
>
> Now imagine having to explain to a new user how to use gFTP. A bit
> better than commandline in windows, but not by much. They are still
> presented with a GUI totally unfamiliar to anything else, and are asked
> to comprehend alot of technical mumbo jumbo.
>
> Finally, imagine telling them to use Nautilus to ftp. Ahhh. Much better.
> Same thing as they do when copying files on their local machine, except
> they have to enter the server, username, and password.
>
> I think this is definitely one of those situations where we have to stop
> thinking like developers for a sec, and imagine ourselves as Joe Blow
> end users. (Remember, nothing prevents those who need something more
> advanced from doing a simple sudo apt-get install gftp).
>
> Britt
>
>
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-devel mailing list
> ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com
> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
>



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[Britt Selvitelle]

Hey guys,

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 02:09 +0200, Daniel Borgmann wrote:
> > 2) gFTP presents a very 'relevant' UI for FTP, at least in my opinion.
> > It has things like CHMOD and similar just a menu away.
>
> Ugh, that's exactly what I'm talking about. :) The user should never
> ever have to deal with terms like "chmod" in a modern GUI. After all
> this is nothing but our good old unix file permissions and gftp doesn't
> even care to explain this fact. It is unfortunate that Nautilus doesn't
> support changing of file permissions on FTP servers yet, but I also
> don't think that this is a required feature for the vast majority of
> users.

Agreed. I think this ideal perfectly follows the Gnome mantra.

> I'm not aware of any obvious user-visible differences between FTP
> locations and local locations, which would require a completely separate
> application, using a whole new metaphor for file managment.

Agreed here as well. There is a very nice trend developing in Gnome
applications right now ... Rhythmbox will soon do audio CD burning.
Nautilus will do data CD burning. Along these lines Nautilus should
handle generic file transfer as well. IMO FTP falls under this category.

The problem is that these features are not immediately discoverable,
because inferior operating systems handle this differently, and people
simply aren't used network specific file transfer in a file manager.

What we really need is some type of interactive application that walks
new users some of the coolest features of the desktop. Things like
double-middle-click in spatial nautilus, CD burning, the concept of
virtual-desktops, etc.

> I have been
> using Nautilus as my exclusive FTP client since many months now, even
> though it completely sucked before 2.8 and couldn't handle
> authentication in a sane way. If this works for me as a web developer, I
> don't see why this shouldn't work for basic users.
>
> > However, I do agree with many of your sentiments and I don't really
> > like gFTP because it is very clunky. However with a nice iconset it
> > would intergrate much better, IMO.
>
> The icons certainly are the least of its problems. ;)

Recently I had to help a friend FTP some files via Windows. I went
through the process of explaining to him over the phone how to open a
terminal and use the (very broken) commandline ftp application. As you
can imagine, it was not fun :)

Now imagine having to explain to a new user how to use gFTP. A bit
better than commandline in windows, but not by much. They are still
presented with a GUI totally unfamiliar to anything else, and are asked
to comprehend alot of technical mumbo jumbo.

Finally, imagine telling them to use Nautilus to ftp. Ahhh. Much better.
Same thing as they do when copying files on their local machine, except
they have to enter the server, username, and password.

I think this is definitely one of those situations where we have to stop
thinking like developers for a sec, and imagine ourselves as Joe Blow
end users. (Remember, nothing prevents those who need something more
advanced from doing a simple sudo apt-get install gftp).

Britt

[Daniel Borgmann]

On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 23:16 +0100, Martin Alderson wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:58:39 +0200, Daniel Borgmann
> <spark-mailinglists@web.de> wrote:
> > Just a quick question. I noticed that gFTP appears in the default
> > desktop installation and I'm wondering if this isn't deprecated by the
> > Nautilus FTP stuff. It doesn't seem appropriate to me to use protocol-
> > specific applications for file managment in the 21. century. :)
> > gFTP also doesn't follow the HIG very well, exposes file paths to the
> > user and hidden files are not hidden by default. Hopefully I'm not
> > offending anyone, but I personally don't think that gFTP matches the
> > level of polish and usability of the other desktop parts.
> > My suggestion would be to not install it by default, but maybe I'm
> > missing something. Please excuse me if this was discussed before
> > already, I couldn't find anything in the archives.
>
> While I see where you are coming from, I think keeping gFTP is a good
> idea because:
>
> 1) Many, many people are used to a double pane, drag and drop
> interface for FTP and will not be happy with using a folder based
> system or not be able to find it. Look how many people use Windows
> Explorer for FTP vs SmartFTP, FlashFXP or whatever - everyone that I
> know uses a client for the job. (Yes, I know Windows Explorer sucks
> when it comes to FTP, but it works.. somewhat).

Well, it's true that many people I talk to don't even know that IE can
handle FTP sites, but is that a reason to ship a less usable
application? It's also a lot more discoverable in GNOME and network
transparency is quite an impressive feature, let's not be ashamed of it
and encourage users to actually use it.

> 2) gFTP presents a very 'relevant' UI for FTP, at least in my opinion.
> It has things like CHMOD and similar just a menu away.

Ugh, that's exactly what I'm talking about. :) The user should never
ever have to deal with terms like "chmod" in a modern GUI. After all
this is nothing but our good old unix file permissions and gftp doesn't
even care to explain this fact. It is unfortunate that Nautilus doesn't
support changing of file permissions on FTP servers yet, but I also
don't think that this is a required feature for the vast majority of
users.
I'm not aware of any obvious user-visible differences between FTP
locations and local locations, which would require a completely separate
application, using a whole new metaphor for file managment. I have been
using Nautilus as my exclusive FTP client since many months now, even
though it completely sucked before 2.8 and couldn't handle
authentication in a sane way. If this works for me as a web developer, I
don't see why this shouldn't work for basic users.

> However, I do agree with many of your sentiments and I don't really
> like gFTP because it is very clunky. However with a nice iconset it
> would intergrate much better, IMO.

The icons certainly are the least of its problems. ;)

--
Daniel Borgmann <spark@mayl.de>

[Daniel Borgmann]

Just a quick question. I noticed that gFTP appears in the default
desktop installation and I'm wondering if this isn't deprecated by the
Nautilus FTP stuff. It doesn't seem appropriate to me to use protocol-
specific applications for file managment in the 21. century. :)
gFTP also doesn't follow the HIG very well, exposes file paths to the
user and hidden files are not hidden by default. Hopefully I'm not
offending anyone, but I personally don't think that gFTP matches the
level of polish and usability of the other desktop parts.
My suggestion would be to not install it by default, but maybe I'm
missing something. Please excuse me if this was discussed before
already, I couldn't find anything in the archives.

--
Daniel Borgmann <spark@mayl.de>

[Martin Alderson]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 23:58:39 +0200, Daniel Borgmann
<spark-mailinglists@web.de> wrote:
> Just a quick question. I noticed that gFTP appears in the default
> desktop installation and I'm wondering if this isn't deprecated by the
> Nautilus FTP stuff. It doesn't seem appropriate to me to use protocol-
> specific applications for file managment in the 21. century. :)
> gFTP also doesn't follow the HIG very well, exposes file paths to the
> user and hidden files are not hidden by default. Hopefully I'm not
> offending anyone, but I personally don't think that gFTP matches the
> level of polish and usability of the other desktop parts.
> My suggestion would be to not install it by default, but maybe I'm
> missing something. Please excuse me if this was discussed before
> already, I couldn't find anything in the archives.

While I see where you are coming from, I think keeping gFTP is a good
idea because:

1) Many, many people are used to a double pane, drag and drop
interface for FTP and will not be happy with using a folder based
system or not be able to find it. Look how many people use Windows
Explorer for FTP vs SmartFTP, FlashFXP or whatever - everyone that I
know uses a client for the job. (Yes, I know Windows Explorer sucks
when it comes to FTP, but it works.. somewhat).

2) gFTP presents a very 'relevant' UI for FTP, at least in my opinion.
It has things like CHMOD and similar just a menu away.

However, I do agree with many of your sentiments and I don't really
like gFTP because it is very clunky. However with a nice iconset it
would intergrate much better, IMO.

--
Get Firefox - Popup blocking, tabbed browsing and great security:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=9&t=1