Slashdot Mirror
New Nautilus Screenshots
max cohen writes "Eazel has posted some new screenshots of Nautilus (as of August 2nd) and they're much improved from eariler versions. I can't wait to get my hands on the Nautilus preview release and give it a test drive!" They've come a long way since the last batch of shots: especially interesting is the way it handles albums of MP3s, and its integration with mozilla.
This by far not the first time I am well disappointed with the slashdot crowd. Perhaps someday I will quit posting here. That day is not today.
| each-other, we have real power in the OS. Now we can have a powerful yet easy application. Now we can have our cake and eat it too.
Nautilus is great! Maybe some of you can step back a moment to see what Nautilus really it...of course not! this is slashdot! The only one who is allowed to include web browsing functionality into the file manager is Microsoft, right? Wrong! It just makes sense! FTP, HTML, file directories...they all are dependent on each other...they all make *sense* to exist together. Has anyone ever browsed an FTP site in IE? Notice how it looked *exactly* like any other folder in Windows Explorer? That is the *point*! It is called usability, people. It is called ease of use, people. The best interface is when everything looks the same! It is also called power.
You see, soon novice users will have the power to do some of things you *can't* on the command-line. And that makes you mad. And makes you label Nautilus a Windows clone. Grow up.
But lets just say for a moment, that you can, theoretically, think out of the box. Then you will see that Nautilus is more than just fancy file manager with web functionality. Did you see the screenshot with the mp3 player? You can play mp3's directly in the file browser! And don't tell me about big Microsoftian applications (again, another stupid comparison with Microsoft) that are monoliths. Nautilus uses components. That means that the web browser is a separate component, the mp3 player is a separate component, and maybe the file browser is a separate component...I don't know! But it is the Unix way, right? Except for the "easy" part which, as we all know...is way to Microsoftian for our own good, right?
So instead of piping|our|outdated|legacy|flat-text|utilities|to
(Note: My hostility is towards several posters who have already posted. I clicked in this story to see if others have seen what I saw in the screenshots of Nautilus. Instead I see anti-Microsoft zealotry. I just think the folks at Eazel deserve a little more. They have actually gone quite a ways beyond Microsoft in both power and ease-of-use. There. I said something bad about Microsoft. You can like me now.)
This sounds like a weird thing, but the thing that can have the greatest negative or positive impact on the appearance of a user interface is the default system screen font.
MacOS and BeOs seem to be the GUIs with the nicest system screen fonts, IMHO. Chicago, the first Mac screen font was designed to be simple, readable and visually appealing.
The old Mac combo of Chicago (or even Charcoal) and Monaco was killer, and gave the Mac GUI a polished and visually clean look.
While I am aware you can probably change the font properties, I'm surprised that these former mac GUI gurus forgot to use a better default screen font.
It'd be nice if the article header said what the Nautilus application was, for those readers not in the in crowd. I've heard of Eazel, who are trying to make Linux easier to use, though I haven't kept track of which thing Nautilus is. Once I waded through the slashdottedness of the site to look at the pictures, the couple I saw just looked like a file manager thing running in a browser. Slightly prettier than Netscape's default directory display, if you like that sort of GUI stuff, but if that's all it is, it's boring. What's does Nautilus DO?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Since the site seems to be slow as ass, and I'm just dying to get my DSL link slashdotted today, I've got a mirror of the screenshots up at http://www.trumpie.net/nautilus.
Enjoy.
"Hmm, a file browser + web browser without the bloat of two separate products"
Since when has integration of a file browser and a web browser been a good thing?
Yes, it's nice to have a file browser which can do useful things with the various types of files, but I define "useful things" as launching the application that works with files of that MIME type -- NOT loading another component into place in the file browser window.
You present new users with an interface that keeps changing, and doesn't give a clear line between different applications. This is confusing to people still struggling with the "executable programs and content data" split, not to mention probably not what the people experienced with computers wanted. I prefer to work with the data I've selected in a separate program, as opposed to in plae, so I can arrange them on my virtual desktops and continue to use the file manager for its purpose -- managing files.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The problem is that it's UGLY. An interface not only needs to be functional but RESPONSIVE. Even on my 300MHz computer, KFM still crawls compared to Win95's explorer. Sure KFM looks a little better, but it really doesn't matter. Writing bloated code and hoping proc's will get fast enough is something best left to Microsoft. If something can be good looking and functional without taking a huge amount of resources, then it should be programmed that way. Every program should be coded with a correct balance. The current mantra is (add features, speed be damned!) That's what lead to using CORBA in the DE and Gecko in the file manager. They are very feature powerful, but most of those features are really useless. Does anybody actually take advantage of the HTML customizablity of their folders? File previews are nice, but that is very simple to implement (WITHOUT a powerful XML rendering engine like Gecko!) In the end, you can replace Gecko with some nice bitmaps in the corner, and 99% of people won't be able to tell the difference. If you code for that other 1%, then you'll end up with a crappier product. Ever wonder WHY Windows is so bloated? Not so much sloppy coding, but feature bloat. OSS projects don't need feature bloat. They don't HAVE to make people upgrade to new versions because of new (usually unused) feature. GNOME these days is reeking of Microsoft. I mean only MS would go and put a rich, powerful, distrubted framework like CORBA into the DE. I mean how many people NEED their AbiWord component distributed over a world-wide network?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The thing is, with Slashdot hitting the site so hard, you're probably getting a real-time simulation of how the pretty GUI will load on your system.
Cheers.
I thought the Nautalis was still buried deep under the ocean who-knows-where after that affair with the hurricane and the giant squid. I mean, I know they have all those new submersibles and the Jason and things like that, but I didn't know they knew where the nautalis was located, let alone go down there and take pictures of it.
Will the wonders of science never cease?
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
The good news is that from this screenshot it looks like they're using gecko embedded through bonobo, skipping the mozilla framework itself. This is a good thing (not a Good Thing(tm)). Mozilla tries to be a platform, not just a browser; this conflicts with Nautilis also aiming to be a platform, not just a file browser. The end result would be a huge bloaty product. However, by just using Gecko, you get your file browser to be the platform (better than the web browser) while still having a speedy web browser for web pages.
Hmm, a file browser + web browser without the bloat of two separate products. Sounds kind of like Internet Explorer minus the bugs and security holes.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
While a file manager is useful to a newbie, I always find that I can get work done faster using a cli to a good shell like bash.
Then I would highly recommend you continue to use a CLI.
A file manager is to a cli as a first grade primer is to a novel.
Why be so offensive? Are you simply trolling? File Managers are not signficantly less powerful than CLIs. They are good at different types of operation, and they suit some people better than others. Many people are more visually-oriented than verbally-oriented. The former tend to prefer GUIs, the later CLIs. The fact that GUIs are considerably more popular than CLIs is some evidence that more people are visually-oriented than verbally.
One can be lot more expressive with text that with pictures. Sure, a picture is equal to a thousand words but the only problem is 'which one?!'
I disagree. Two scenarios:
1. I want to move all the files that end in .txt from directory A to directory B
2. I want to move all the files whose contents relate to my web site from directory A to directory B
Obviously a CLI like bash is going to be more efficient at expressing the commands for 1. But assuming that the files related to my web site are not organized according to a regular pattern, then doing operation 2 is going to be much easier using a GUI (I just click on the set of files I want and drag them).
Even when there is a regular pattern of files you want to work with, a GUI can often be easier (if less efficient) because I can just select the files I want directly, and I don't have to go through the cognitive process of forming the right pattern-matching command. If I want to pick 3 files out of 50, it often feels quicker to just click on them in a GUI view, than figure out the particular command that would select just those files. And in UI what feels quicker is often "better" (i.e. prefered by users) than the actually optimal strategy.
GUIs and CLIs are different tools that are optimized for different purposes. Both have strengths and weaknesses. I personally like to have both running and feel free to switch between them.
Sailing over the event horizon
I've mirrored some of the images. (They are quite impressive; Note that as you zoom in on a text file, you can actually read the text within the file..!)
Consider it an experiment in Slashdotting.
The short answer is that Nautilus is Eazel's open source replacement for the current Gnome file manager, gmc. As the Gnome hackers discovered once they were deep into the project, Midnight Commander wasn't the greatest of file managers to use as a starting point for a Gnome file manager. Also, as The Gnome Project has matured, we have new technologies to work with, such as Bonobo. Nautilus will use these new advances in the Gnome framework to provide a next generation file manager for the Gnome Project. Nautilus will not only allow you to manage your files, but also to view documents using embedded viewers. The next generation Gnome help system will use nautilus, for example. Once nautilus is released as part of the Gnome desktop, users will notice an incredible difference as it will play a very integral part, and should appeal to newbies and Unix experts alike.
----
Celebrate the finer things in life