Feature request: browsing filesystem in gnome "computer" menu

[Dmitriy Kropivnitskiy]

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. I also think that usage of web browsing as a metaphore for
file system access is misleading (and I am not the only one to mention
that). You do not browse the web the same way you browse your file
system. BTW for me I would be very happy if someone would make a plugin
for firefox to open link automatically in a new window if the link leads
to an external site.
The argument about software being transparent to the user, is very good,
but unfortunately, there is always the balance between efficiency and
intuitiveness. A professional executive assistant will type a letter in
MS Word, much faster than you or me without ever touching the mouse. She
is effective, but she spent a good deal of time getting familiar with
the program in question. I have to say, that when I tried to write a
resume in Word a few months ago, I cursed every second interface feature
of Word and have to say that I never succeeded (after a couple of hours
trying to get the formating the way I wanted, I rebooted back to Linux
and wrote it in HTML using vim). I suppose, that if I had to use Word on
daily basis, I would become comfortable with it, but at the first glance
it seemed to me that UI was designed by aliens and for aliens. This
whole story has a point, that every well designed UI is comfortable once
you get accustomed to the way things are done in it. Most of the current
interfaces are not intuitive, and paradigms behind them are not obvious
to normal people, so the whole argument about browsing or spacial being
more intuitive for a new user is a bit pointless, each one needs getting
used to.

P.S. Can someone explain to me why middle click in firefox opens a new
tab by default as opposed of a new window. I think tabs are completely
unnatural and confusing.

On Fri, 2004-11-19 at 08:25 -0800, George Farris wrote:

> The most basic point in all computer UI design is that the user does not
> want to use your application. They want to get their work done as
> quickly and easily as possible, and the application is simply a tool
> aiding that. The more you can keep your application out of the way of
> the user, the better. Effort spent on using your application is effort
> not spent on the work the user is trying to do. Two key quotes from Alan
> Cooper's second book, About Face 2.0, summarise this very well:
> 
> In it he talks about the most used button in Firefox being the back
> button and it should be larger.  The same may be said about Nautilus in
> that the most used feature of just opening a new window and closing the
> old one should be tied to the left-click.  There should at least be an
> option to allow this.  I really think that the browser window should
> have a feature to allow the gtkfilebrowser sidebar to pop up for
> bookmarks and filesystem access.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> George Farris   farrisg at mala.bc.ca
> Network and Technical Services
> Malaspina University-College
> 
>