On 7/1/06, Ryan Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I like the idea of an interface that changes dynamically to reflect > actions available for the selected element, but I think that the panel > is a better place for this than a nautilus sidebar. It would be nice to > have a context sensitive toolbar sort of thing embedded in the GNOME > panel that would change depending on which application is active and > what item is selected. Would making it a universal panel thing be an HIG > violation? Having application functionality accessible somewhere other > than the application window might be bad usability mojo. >
I don't know whether it would violate the HIG - but I consider the panel as something _separate_ from any application. I know where my firefox icon is at all times, and I don't want that to change. Putting dynamic information on the panel about the current application is a big departure from the way things work, and I think it is far less intuitive than putting dynamic information _right by the stuff it relates to_. Do you have specific reasons for not wanting to use the sidebar? > Potentially, it could show the most frequently used menu/toolbar items > for the active program, or if you select a specific item it could also > show the right-click menu options for that item. In a recent thread, I > remember somebody saying something about users not being aware of > features available on right-click menus, so this could really enhance > usability in that sense and expose more functionality to the user. > I said people weren't aware of context menus in my proposal. I think that moving them a laong way away from where the user is looking isn't going to be much more helpful than having them on right click - puting the options right next to a file makes it clear what they relate to. With a whole screen full of applications, I don't think it is clear that a 'reame file' menu item on the panel relates to the file selected in the current Nautilus window! > In Windows Vista, the file manager has a toolbar that changes to show > contextually relevant operations. When I select a text file while > browsing a folder in Vista, that toolbar changes so that it has an > 'open' drop-down menu with a list of applications with which the file > can be opened, a print button, an e-mail button, a share button, etc. It > really makes the system functionality a lot more accessible to users > that don't know it's on the right-click menu. > > I could imagine programs making actions available via d-bus for this > feature. That would make it possible for developers to create > alternative interfaces that can take advantage of it in addition to a > panel applet. This is probably a bit too ambitious for the GNOME 2 > series, but maybe something to think about for GNOME 3? > Dbus seems like it may be a good way to do the communication between Nautilus and the 'Engines' I outlined - can someone in the know sugggest whether this is true? > Also, the nautilus information panel already has buttons with > application actions, maybe it would be beneficial to build on that for > the short term? It looks like those buttons in the info panel only show > 'open with' actions for the current directory. Maybe the information > panel should be improved to also show the 'open with' operations > associated with the selected file as well as the current directory? This has been suggested before, and was filed as a bug in a few places. Given that nothing has changed even after some patches were submitted I wonder whether it will actually change. Perhaps if the issue was with the quality of the patch it could stiulll happen... > > As long as I am rambling about Nautilus interface stuff, I'd like to > suggest that proper right-click support be added to the buttons in the > location/path bar. Say that I want to open the parent folder in a new > window. Rather than having to go to the parent and then select 'open in > new window' from the file menu, I want to be able to right-click it in > the path bar and select 'open in new window.' Is there a reason why this > hasn't been done yet? Maybe implementing that would be a good way for me > to start getting involved in GNOME development? I think a more useful thing to do relating to those buttons is to allow access to a path box without pressing CTRL+L - I cannot think of a good way to do this apart from having a toggle button, or implementing it more like [textbox][button "/"][TextBox][button"/"] etc - but that may look clumsy and really weird! > -- Ryan > Who _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
