Slashdot Mirror
The Captains of Nautilus
GonzoJohn writes "The official GNOME filemanager Nautilus was originally developed by Eazel as part of their plan to bring usability and beauty to the Unix desktop. Today Nautilus is maintained by veteran GNOME hackers Alexander Larsson and Dave Camp. Being such a core application in the GNOME desktop it is the topic of many discussions in and around GNOME. In a recent survey on gnomedesktop.org an interview about Nautilus was at the top of the wishlist. So to let everyone get the inside scope on what is happening with Nautilus currently I got hold of Alexander and Dave for a small interview.""
Ever since the release of GNOME2 threads of rebellion have surfaced in the community over the increased emphasis on corporate users over experienced GNOME users. Havoc, 'The point about corporate users is that they don't install the OS, or install their own hardware, or have to configure NFS mounts, etc. There's an admin to sort that stuff out.' This emphasis has lead to the removal of much of the flexibility inherant in GNOME2's predecessor. The fruits of this change have begun to surface, here, and here, and here.
Apparently, according to top GNOME developer Havoc Pennington, linux users are not Real Users^TM. Havoc, 'The only way to collect input from real users instead of Linux enthusiasts is to do user testing. We can't do user testing for every decision.'
Oh, God, NO! Please don't compare the "whole explorer metaphor" to Mac OS. Finder is the most efficient (IMHO) file management system and perfected in Mac OS X. Windows Explorer and its red-headed stepchild, Nautilus, don't even come close. I've tried them both and they put up barriers to file management with bells and whistles that get in the way of what users really are doing with their files -- copying, moving, deleting, searching, locating and transfering.
Hop over to a CompUSA or an Apple Store and give Finder a spin and you will see the difference.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
i am without mmx, and only have 48 mb ram (the board doesn't actually support 168-pin dimms even though it has 2 sockets and 48 is the best i can do with four 72-pin simms).
kde works fine (but slow), but i let gnome go overnight and when i got up the next morning it was STILL on the splash screen, so i gave up on gnome for that computer
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
Although I understand the need for the newbie user, I've never understood why Nautilus is so important to the initiated GNOME user. I very rarely have a need to use a graphical file manager, and when I do, I'd prefer one that wasn't buggy as snot and slower than tar. No matter what version I've tried, its always had problems. I don't believe I've ever been actively using it for more than a few minutes where it hasn't crashed (don't even bother on Solaris...) Its new and large, so I understand it will take a while, but I don't know that it is ready to have a central role in GNOME.
Yes, its nice eye candy, but how much is it actually used, aside from showing new users that you can drag and drop and preview just like Explorer?
I find Konqueror more usable, but it still seems like an afterthought. On both KDE and GNOME, the whole Desktop Icons and Folders scheme seems so out of place -- like a bad impulse no one should have acted on. I'm not anti-Nautilus, I just don't know that the whole GUI file manager application is as important as people make it out to be.
I'm not flaming, just wondering if anyone else doesn't feel the same.
Don't blame me, I get all my opinions from my Ouija board.
I've been using Nautilus2 in Redhat 8.0 for a while now, and I really can't find nothing but positive comments about it. It loads and works fast, it looks great, and in my oppinion, it has a lot of usability. I haven't seen it crash once yet.
My only problem is: I really like to Microsoft idea (argh, flamewar ohoy?) of having the browser integrated into the filemanager. Just type in an http url, and you're on the net. No need to launch an other app. Anyone knows if they're planning to impliment Mozilla into Nautilus2?
I know about gtkhtml, but it really sucks, and isn't even supposed to be a real web browser. It is only supposed to view non-complicated html pages.
My 0.02$.
You, my friend, don't put trust info the adaptation ability of the human species, at least once they start to use something that make their life easier.
I may be mistaken, but remember, not too long ago using a _washing machine_ was a little more difficult than uing a computer nowadays. But many women were happily using them at that time (I've never messed with an antique washing machine's operating device, but I heard it was quite complicated and nasty).
People have been educated by the powers at hand in the last few years to consider that computers _must_ be as usable as your common toasters. The whole Apple concept is based on that feature, and that's why I try to learn about the Apple UI as much as I can.
That said, I nethertheless think that the whole idea is wrong. Computers are _not_ easy to use. Period. They were not meant to be. Trying to make them as usable as possible for as much people as possible is always putting features away from the user, and you can't do a thing about that how much hard you try (trust me).
You can make computers easy to use, but they would would become emasculated, tied-to-a-task, a pale shadow of what they were designed for. Though you will find many, many people nowadays that think this is the way to go for computers. Some of them even make laws in the US. Go figure.
In addition, I do think IMHO the average joe user is far more adaptable than you think, given that you provide him with the best product around. People are not too stupid to use a different OS, they have to discover again what computers are capable of.
Give them remote X displays. Give them remote SSH sessions. Give them Coda folders. Explain to them they can turn off their machine for _anywhere_. Explain to them they're in control. Explain it's complicated, but it's worth it. They'll learn.
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
http://rox.sourceforge.net
Here are my reasons why: (and yes I did speak to the Nautilus developers about it...they laughed) I'd personally prefer something light, fast, and usable. For those who don't know there are good file managers out there: ROX-Filer, or GFileRunner.
Joe User is able to handle UNIX, sure. But Joe User also has other things to do, like his job. Learning takes time.
Joe User isn't looking to learn about rpm databases and filesystem variations and network connections. Joe User wants his word processor to work so he can write a report, and he wants his email to work so he can send it out and land the Nicholson account and get that raise.
Remember: For most people, it's a tool, not a toy. They'll have to learn how to use it, and it's the developer's job to make that process quick.
If we want people to use product B (Linux) instead of product A (Win), we *definitely* need to persuade people that switching is easy to do.
a.
Yes, I think Explorer can do something similar. It's not quite the same, but as I'm not a heavy Finder user I'll have to take your word for it....
The Finder doesn't take up memory with caching all the directory structures, just the most recent. So the rendering is slow due to the Finder reading the icons + positions + the directory listing and all the other info from the disk.
Hmm? Neither does Rox, but it's still very fast. I don't know how Tom Leonard does it, but I recall seeing a brief explanation. It's got some pretty clever internals to make it extremely fast - which is why people associate rox with fast. "Buy a faster disk" isn't really a good solution compared to "make the finder faster".
Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. This has been a problem since OS X, because type and creator codes are no longer required, and thus files dont' always have them. The most common types such as .png, .jpg, etc. are supposed to be noticed by the finder and passed to QuickTime for this same sort of detection, all behind the scenes. [snip]
Hmm, sounds like it was good, albiet very complex. 10/10 for flexibility. Wouldn't running apps themselves have quite a bit of overhead though if you wanted to compile say a view with metadata in it? file is very fast as it just uses a combination of lookup tables with binary regexs iirc.
A simple RTFM solves this. Use the technique I described above, type the name until the highlight matches, and Apple-O, or any other keyboard shortcut you'd like, depending of course, on what you want to do with the file. You can actually move quite fast once you get the hang of it, it comes as natural as typing and using the shift key.
What happens if I have two files called "Business Plan" and "Business Diary" (let's pretend). Can I type "bu - tab - d - enter"? Or do I have to type "Business D - enter"? This isn't trying to trip you up or anything, I'm just curious.
Ahh, yes this feature coudl stand out a little more but the Finder is no Web Browser and therefore we keep this tucked away under the Go menu. Choose "Connect To Server..." or, for speed-shortcutting, use Apple-K (Konnect, C interferes with Copy)
OK, cool. Is that a VFS type system? ie in Konqueror I can go to audiocd:/ and copy my audio tracks named from a CDDB server as Oggs to my hard disk, and the files will be ripped and compressed transparently. There's nothing magic about that, what's neat is that it looks just like another FS to me. You could argue this is bloat, but I see no reason why it should be slow technically....
You clearly haven't used the Finder much, IamTheRealMike, but then you also seem to not care because it is Apple. This is a theme that came across in your post. Dont' assume you need to tell someone off because they defended their view - if I was to bad mouth the Linux kernel I'd be killed on this website, by all the slashdotters doing the same. Give it another try, look around carefully, Apple does things differently for a reason. You won't be a power user in a day. That's why Apple's interface is great, it does things logically but not the way other interfaces too. There is too much similarity with other file borwsers that limits them in some respects.
Well, good points. I wrote that last paragraph mainly because toupsie is a well known Mac troll, pretty much every post I see from him/her that gets modded up is estolling the Mac and trashing everything else. I'm not a heavy Finder user, I tend to use it on other peoples Macs, and I don't actually hate the Finder or anything, but I was trying to counterbalance toupsie who seemed to think that the Finder was perfection (it isn't) and that Explorer/the CLI/Nautilus/whatever is automatically awful, because it isn't Apple (they aren't)
Well, thanks for the informative reply. I wish all replies to my posts were like that......
Mac Finder, MS Explorer, Nautilus - all of them are too heavy for simple file operations: copy, move, delete, open. Besides, my arm is painfully sick from crazy mouse manipulations I have to do for simple file operations. And all such GUI doesn't bring any additional value comparing to ncurses-based mc.
Speaking about mouse, watch what Photoshop professionals use - keyboard shortcuts. When you need a speed - keyboard is your best friend and mouse is your enimy.
Less is more !
I think you've confused "easy to use" with "dumbed down". Contrary to popular belief, the two are not the same thing. Your washing machine example proves it. By your own admission, older less functional washing machines were difficult to use and had complex interfaces. Modern washing machines do more, but they're easier to use. Would you prefer a thirty year old washing machine because it had a more complex interface?
Another great example is VCRs. I used to have an old Panasonic with complex push-button controls for setting scheduled recordings. Heck, even setting the clock was a chore. Nowadays, a Tivo does everything that my old Panasonic did (and more!) but it does it with an easy-to-use OSD. Is the old VCR more powerful because it was harder to use? I think not.
This
I discovered ROX about a week ago. ICEWM and ROX with the *excellent* GKRELLM for sys type stuff is excellent. Top if off with Mozilla, Pan and Sylpheed and 90% of your needs are probably met. XMMS of course, and MPlayer kicks tail.