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[Andrew Farris]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> Andrew Farris wrote:
>>
>>> It isn't that the oddball action is impossible, it is just wrong.
>>
>> Wrong?  There is nothing wrong with spatial browsing...
>>
>> Surprising to you?  Surprising to whom?
> 
> To anyone who has used any other windowing system or any application 
> that has a File/Open new window option and expects to get new windows 
> only when they ask for them.
> 
>> A person new to linux who has no exposure to Windows does not find 
>> this behavior surprising, I assure you. 
> 
> Why would someone only use one OS? And why should you have to be such a 
> person to find this behavior tolerable?

I use many of them and its possible to configure Windows Vista/XP/2000 to behave 
almost exactly the same way.. with the exception that windows does not offer you 
the ability to shift-click your way through (closing parent windows) and it 
cannot remember screen location for each directory separately.  Because it lacks 
these things it is far less effective to use spatial browsing.. hence why I use 
tree views in Explorer.

>  > A window gets opened, you then open another folder... one without
>> any prior expectations will observe that opening a different folder 
>> should open a new window.
> 
> And when they go more than a few folders deep they'll still be annoyed 
> at all the useless still-open windows left around even if they expect them.

Not necessarily.

>> A person new to nautilus spatial browsing but who has experience with 
>> linux may find it surprising, and so will someone who has experience 
>> with Windows Explorer but who has never seen Apple OS. 
> 
> The finder in OS X doesn't clutter my screen that way - at least in 
> 10.5.  What Apple OS do you mean?

Thats because Apple has chosen not to make it default behavior, not because it 
is not included.  Take a look in the Finder preferences and you'll find it right 
there (always open in new window) and then set your finder mode to icon view 
(cmd-1) and start browsing spatially.  OSX will behave very similarly to Gnome 
when you've done that, remembering window placement for any directory you have 
opened.

Whether it is the default behavior is not something I'm really concerned about, 
only the perception that it is somehow 'wrong' because you don't like it.

>> If this argument is going to be used lets get to the root of it... is 
>> conforming to the 'de facto' standard (folder trees) in browsing files 
>> in the Windows world important?  There is no wrong.
> 
> "Different for no reason" is wrong for anyone who works with more than 
> one system.  And opening new windows all over the place is different 
> even from earlier versions of nautilus itself.

I suggest you go have a look through gnome development mailing lists for 
discussion on spatial browsing if you really are interested (especially if you 
want to argue it should not be the default for upstream).  You might also find 
this [1] interesting (see point 6).

This thread is one more example of why HCI is still (3 years after this blog) in 
the stone ages.. because people continue to demand things work the way they 
first learned them to work even when it makes very little sense from a 
perspective of how a human might best work with a computer.

And interesting read [2] on why the 'desktop' itself is a poor interface 
destined to be forgotten and left behind as we learn to interact with our 
computers in far more complicated ways.

[1] 
http://juicability.blogspot.com/2005/09/top-8-reasons-hci-is-in-its-stone-age.html
[2] http://www.temple.edu/ispr/examples/ex01_12_24.html

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
  gpg 0xC99B1DF3 fingerprint CDEC 6FAD BA27 40DF 707E A2E0 F0F6 E622 C99B 1DF3
No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
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