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View Full Version : Even more Nautilus suggestions ...



el3ktro
June 4th, 2006, 10:20 PM
I have been thinking about Nautilus a lot in the past, and although I think it is a very good file manager, I'd make a few suggestions to improve it (hopefully). Please tell me what you think about it after you've looked at my hand-made mockup (please don't laugh ;-) )

TOOLBAR
I'd remove the "Up" button. Both in Konqueror & in Nautilus I've never seen anybody using it, and I think it's confusing for most people. You can actually go to the parent directory be clicking the buttons beneath the toolbar ( home | joe ), so you have a left-right folder navigation, so a buton which points UPwards makes no sense imho.

I'd also combine the Stop & the Reload button to one single button. It's a Reload button, when you click it, the content is being reloaded, and the button switches to a Stop button, which you can press again to stop the reloading. Having both at the same times makes no sense since you _either_ reload _or_ stop reloading, not both.

I'd remove the "Home folder" and "Computer" buttons, since they're already in the place sidebar - more about this later. I'd move the buttons to change the icon size and the view type into the toolbar, either as symbolic buttons as I suggested or just the same as we have today - just in a different place.

After that, we could have a more powerful search functionality featuring Beagle. You can enter a search word, and choose which types of files should be found - just as in Beagle.

PLACES SIDEBAR
I would change two things in the sidebar: Make it fit more with the places menu, showing a "Computer" icon, and bringing some kind of separation between the different elements (local drives, network mounts, external devices etc.). Removeable media should have a small eject button to unmount/eject them.

SECOND, RIGHT-HANDED SIDEBAR
A second sidebar on the right could be used to show detailed information about the selected file/folder/media etc. If you have a video file selected, it could display infos like video codec, length, languages, resolution etc., if it is a picture it could show some exif information, if it is a symlink it could show the symlink target etc. Perhaps this sidebar could even be used to directly edit some of this information where it is applicable sense (e.g. edit the target of a symlink, edit file permissions, rename the file, edit MP3 tags etc.). The information sidebar should also display a fairly large thumbnail of the file content (if applicable), if it is a video, there could be small video controls beneath it etc.

I didn't draw the title bar, menubar, status bar etc - but these could pretty much the same imho.

Well I hope some of you like my suggestions and please be free to add your comments!

Tom

egon spengler
June 4th, 2006, 10:39 PM
Right now I'm trying out spatial mode but when I used to use nautilus in browser I used "up" all the time. When you mention the buttons beneath the toolbar you mean the breadcrumb things? I had those turned off as well, address bar was more useful for me so as i could get to hidden directories easier

jobezone
June 4th, 2006, 11:40 PM
Nice mockup.
I agree with having a search bar always displayed. Why is it faster to search inside a website than inside our own computer? In most websites, a search bar is available, in nautilus, one must click search first.
As far as moving Home and Computer icons to the side bar, remember that not everybody wants to have the sidebar, but want quick acess to those 2 important places.

Super King
June 4th, 2006, 11:45 PM
You do have some good ideas for Nautilus, particularly with the left sidebar (especially having an eject button for removable media, it's kind of a pain to half to click Computer, then right click the device, then click Unmount every time).

pmj
June 5th, 2006, 10:22 PM
I'd remove the "Up" button. Both in Konqueror & in Nautilus I've never seen anybody using it, and I think it's confusing for most people.
I use it a lot. If you would like to have it gone from the toolbar, how about suggesting that we can customize the toolbar instead? That way you could remove the up button and I could remove back, forward, stop, reload and search, the buttons I never use.


I'd also combine the Stop & the Reload button to one single button. It's a Reload button, when you click it, the content is being reloaded, and the button switches to a Stop button, which you can press again to stop the reloading. Having both at the same times makes no sense since you _either_ reload _or_ stop reloading, not both.
That's probably exactly what the Opera developers thought when they combined the stop and reload button. The result is that frequently when you get tired of a page loading and press stop the page finishes loading and you accidentally reload it. It's highly annoying. Just something to think about, I have never used these buttons myself.


I'd remove the "Home folder" and "Computer" buttons, since they're already in the place sidebar - more about this later.
This is very bad, as not everyone uses the side pane. I find that the side pane is mostly useless to me, and takes up a lot of valuable space.


SECOND, RIGHT-HANDED SIDEBAR
What kind of insane resolution to you use? Or do you have your Nautilus windows maximized? I find that ONE side pane takes up too much space and I would never use two.

el3ktro
June 5th, 2006, 10:30 PM
I use it a lot. If you would like to have it gone from the toolbar, how about suggesting that we can customize the toolbar instead? That way you could remove the up button and I could remove back, forward, stop, reload and search, the buttons I never use.

Well a customizable toolbar would indeed be good ... but on the other side, it adds so much complexity to a program ...



That's probably exactly what the Opera developers thought when they combined the stop and reload button. The result is that frequently when you get tired of a page loading and press stop the page finishes loading and you accidentally reload it. It's highly annoying. Just something to think about, I have never used these buttons myself.


I don't know if you can compare this with a web browser. In Nautilus the "Reload" button is actually more a "Refresh" button, it doesn't take as long as it may take for a website, but a good point anyway.


This is very bad, as not everyone uses the side pane. I find that the side pane is mostly useless to me, and takes up a lot of valuable space.[/QOTE]

How do you access other devices then? I have a few harddisks mounted, and I have them all in the sidebar.


[QUOTE]What kind of insane resolution to you use? Or do you have your Nautilus windows maximized? I find that ONE side pane takes up too much space and I would never use two.

I run at 1280x1024, and there's plenty of space left. And don't forget, all of this is optional. If you don't like either of the sidebars, then turn them off. But I think it would be a good idea for many users to have details about a file at hand all the time, and this "Detail" or "Information" sidebar could even be used to edit some of the file details, for example the tags within a MP3 file.

Tom

pmj
June 5th, 2006, 10:57 PM
Well a customizable toolbar would indeed be good ... but on the other side, it adds so much complexity to a program ...
But surely it would add less complexity than a new side pane with id3 tag editing.


How do you access other devices then? I have a few harddisks mounted, and I have them all in the sidebar.
I only rarely need to switch between devices in Nautilus, but when I do I click Computer and there they are.


I run at 1280x1024, and there's plenty of space left. And don't forget, all of this is optional. If you don't like either of the sidebars, then turn them off.
I use the same resolution, and I think that Nautilus could well be optimized a bit so a larger percentage of the space of the window goes to the file view. When dealing with directories with hundreds or thousands of files you need all the space you can get. And the side pane really didn't sound very optional to me when you wanted the Home and Computer buttons removed.

I wouldn't mind some extra features in Nautilus, and some of yours are pretty good, but I think that the focus right now should be to make Nautilus lighter, faster and easier to use, because there is a lot that can be done still in these areas. But I have to say that id3 tag editing is a really bad idea. A file manager is for browsing and managing files, not modifying the content of the files. I for one want to be *really* sure that my file manager doesn't modify any of my files. For me, that would be a disaster.

Sushi
June 6th, 2006, 08:58 AM
Well a customizable toolbar would indeed be good ... but on the other side, it adds so much complexity to a program ...

How so? There would be no difference in everyday usage of the app. There would just be one additional config-option somewhere in the system (for example, when you right-click on the toolbar), that is all. How would that option make it worse?

As to the Up-button.... I use it all the time. I find it very convenient thing to use.

el3ktro
June 6th, 2006, 09:58 AM
How so? There would be no difference in everyday usage of the app. There would just be one additional config-option somewhere in the system (for example, when you right-click on the toolbar), that is all. How would that option make it worse?

As to the Up-button.... I use it all the time. I find it very convenient thing to use.

Ok it seems a lot of people fell in love with this up-button (which I have likely never clicked in my whole live ;-) ), so let's keep it. When talking about toolbar customization, I just tried to say that it adds a lot of _programming complexity_ to an application, such a toolbar-configuriation dialog is not a trivial one, but still it would probably be a good idea. The question is just how many toolbar buttons you want to provide ... do you just want to have the ones that are in Nautilus right now with the ability to remove some of them, or do you want to have even more toolbar buttons which are not available right now, but which you could add to Nautilus if you wish.

How do you like my other suggestions ... ? People always only tell what they dislike, not wha they do like :-(

Tom

graabein
June 6th, 2006, 10:39 AM
I'd suggest ID3-tag info is kept as simple as showing the name of the song along with album and artist name. If a right side pane is added I would want this to be optional. ID3-tag info should always be displayed in the properties window of a selected media file though.