mc
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Thu Jul 5 05:33:34 UTC 2007
Tim wrote:
>>> But that's not it, is it? It's far more than typing in a command.
>>> Typing ls, or mv, doesn't get me anywhere. I have to cd to where the
>>> files are, probably do mkdir a few times with a cd or two thrown in.
>>> I've got to come up with a sane wildcard to move a collection of files,
>>> or individually list a slew of files with no commonalities between them,
>>> type in paths to move them too, ad infinitum.
>
> Les Mikesell:
>> But, but, but... Having a slew of files with no commonalities doesn't
>> just happen by itself.
>
> Ooooh yes it does (panto voice)... You don't get a say in the naming of
> some things, not every file is one that you've created yourself. Even
> when you do have control, you may not want to similarly name two (or
> more) files that *may* get used together in something else.
I can't think of anything on my computer other than the OS distribution
where I did not have the choice of the directory where it was stored,
but in those cases you probably also can't decide by seeing the name in
a GUI view what the files do have in common or why you'd pick some of
them for a certain operation. You'd probably need to let grep or find
generate a list for you based on something in the files contents or
attributes. And then xargs will run a command on each one in the list
for you.
>>> The fact that Linux has crap GUI file tools, in general, doesn't make
>>> the CLI superior in itself.
>
>> What's the problem with opening several nautilus windows,
>> control-clicking a bunch of files in one window and dragging to one of
>> the others?
>
> It has little more than browsing features (drag and drop, copy and
> paste). If you want to actually manage things, you've got to add in
> features all over the place, and put up with the awful un-user-friendly
> right-click menu/properties technique, or resort to using another
> program, as well. Nautilus is not quick, nor does it make it easy to do
> many file managing tasks (rename, chmod, chown, pattern select, etc.).
"GUIs normally make it simple to accomplish simple actions and
impossible to accomplish complex actions." --Doug Gwyn (22/Jun/91 in
comp.unix.wizards) This has not changed - and probably can't.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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