On Sun, 15 Jul 2007, Raphael Bosshard wrote: > Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:23:45 +0200 > From: Raphael Bosshard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Usability] Inconsistent file size units > > Hello there! > > One of the most outstanding points of the GNOME desktop is the focus > towards usability and consistency. This is one of the reasons I'm > using GNOME. There is, however, one thing that has been bugging me for > quite some time now: the inconsistency in the use of file size units.
> I guess that most of the readers know the problem of using SI units as > prefixes for file sizes and similar power-of-two values, so I won't > elaborate on this point. Readers new to that topic I point to [1]. To paraphrase quick and check I understand you correctly you are talking about: MB versus MiB KB versus KiB GB versus GiB etc. Gnome uses the older convention. Any application that doesn't offer it as the default is incorrect and needs to provide it as the default option. Not sure where the inconsistent units snuck in but individual developers should be trying to avoid those kinds of inconsistencies (or if they care enough to push for it as policy and provide an option in the meantime). This is a technical issue with usability impact but it needs a technical solution (as do most of the consistency issues which is why they are so difficult to solve). If you could gather consensus on desktop-devel and start pushing applications to provide the type of units you want (you'd definitely want to be providing patches to make this happen) then perhaps Gnome could become ready to change the default units in a future release (and possibly going beyond making it a choice and making it the only option but that is perhaps a different question). In the unlikely event anyone wants to know my bias, my opinion is the inconsistency bothers me much more than any change would, so we need to stick with the old convention until a proper consistent change can be made. In terms of usability the exact values are not so importat to users as knowing if they have enough space to get things done, and ideally the software could calculate this for them and provide helpful advice rather than anyone ever needing to look at the precise values. -- Alan _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
