unity-design team mailing list archive

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 05/06/2012 12:32 AM, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> While emblems allowed some distinction, a
> tweak to the icon color would have allowed distinctions that carried
> over into the modes with smaller icons.

Uniform walls of folder icons are indeed not very helpful. An old 
concept, going beyond just color or emblems:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/infolders-informative-folders/


> Mainstream GNOME has all but abandoned Nautilus in favor of
> single-purpose applications. That could be just an implementation
> detail, but I don't think I've seen the kind of cohesion that you'd get
> from a good workplace shell, like Nautilus could have been. Unity
> development seems to be proceeding on the premise that a file manager is
> not needed.

Renaming, moving, copying and deleting files hasn't been addressed 
outside of file managers (or the commandline), so I don't see how 
current GNOME or Unity could do without.


> As I see it, there's a need for Unity to have it's own file manager. I
> haven't seen any designs for this, at least none I liked enough to
> remember. Is anyone else giving this any thought? What's going to
> replace Nautilus?

I agree with much you said and do think this should be addressed. I have 
to warn against starting a design from "replacement for Nautilus" or "a 
file-manager", though. The best answer is not necessarily an 
application, technically or in appearance.


The Dash, the file dialogs, Nautilus (or similar file-managers) and the 
commandline all offer different modes of access with varying 
capabilities. That's a whole library of mental models a user needs to 
pick the best way for some tasks, plus the cost of choosing many times over.

- Are all the differences necessary; what are the costs and 
opportunities of unification?
- Could at least file-open dialogs be made similar to the Dash?
- Could we avoid file dialogs entirely?
- Could the Dash be extended for managing files or could a file-manager 
be Dash-like?
- Are the file and folder semantics even the right answer to user needs?



--
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/