[Thunar-dev] Spatial or not-spatial?

[Benedikt Meurer]

Ok, now on with the UI related parts...

>> Hoever, Benny definately has got a good formula (needs maybe one or 
>> two things to make it really usable, but the concept is good) with the 
>> mockup he presented us. It reminds me strongly of the gtk 
>> file-chooser, and that is IMO a good thing (as I also stated in the 
>> talk).
> 
> I agree. Like I said during the discussion, it is exactly how I use Rox 
> currently. Alexander's comment was that it a navigational interface 
> needs a way to tell the user where they are. So, a location bar (not 
> nice),  a tree (doesn't really fit the design) [...]

Sorry if I missed a point, but which design do you mean here?

> or perhaps something like 
> the path buttons in the gtk file chooser.

The GtkFileChooser attempt is quite nice for a file open dialog. I 
wonder if it would work for a file manager as well.

>> perhaps this is a good time to iterate that the file manager itself 
>> should only be -one- gui. There will be many in the future if we do 
>> things right, like the desktop (being the secondmost important GUI to 
>> the file manager), and possibly even the start menu in the far future. 
>> The real file manager should perhaps even be a non-gui application or 
>> library (although a process will undoubtably be a better design for 
>> the sake of IPC).
>>
>> Personally, my opinion doesn't matter. Neiter does the *personal* 
>> opinion of any developer. It's all about our target audience... and 
>> this is where all of us have to admit that we're in the dark. Benny's 
>> best guess is a navigational file manager, one that closely resembles 
>> other parts of xfce's gui already (gtk file chooser), and thus will 
>> most likely be a good choice.
> 
> Fully agreed. I was really wondering what made benny change his mind. I 
> see advantages to spatial, especially implementation-wise, but I also 
> from the start have felt that our users may not appreciate the 
> restriction it imposes...

Well, as said, personally I'd prefer the spatial view, but as Auke said, 
its not about our personal opinion...

>     Jasper

Benedikt