[Thunar-dev] Proposed preferences for Thunar

[Biju Chacko]

Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Biju Chacko wrote:
> 
>>Benedikt Meurer wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jaap Karssenberg wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>IMHO if you make it look like the gtk filechooser make sure it
>>>>behaves consistent with it. For the user it is very confusing when
>>>>things look the same but behave differently. Besides, if the gtk
>>>>people found this behaviour intuitive enough why disagree with them?
>>>
>>>A valid point indeed. Botsie, what was the point to do otherwise, I 
>>>don't remember? ;-)
>>
>>I don't exactly remember either. My main crib with the Gtk chooser 
>>location bar is that it is very easy to get confused with where exactly 
>>you are in the directory tree. Compare:
>>
>>* Read the name of the last button
>>
>>With
>>
>>* Scan the buttons (and scroll if necessary)
>>
>>* Locate the button in the pressed state.
>>
>>* Read the label of that button.
>>
>>IAC, I don't think we should blindly assume that the GTK folks are 
>>somehow smarter than us.
>>
>>Consistency should be a criteria only when basic usability of all 
>>options has been established. To put it crudely, why screw something up 
>>just because the GTK guys have screwed it up already.
> 
> 
> I agree with your point, but I guess I just don't find it confusing at
> all.  Usually there are very few buttons in the pressed state, and
> pressed vs. non-pressed is very obvious to the eye (well, this is
> theme-dependent, but I haven't seen a theme where this is ambiguous to
> me).  Also, if you navigate to a new directory (not using the buttons),
> I believe the button bar makes sure the button for the current directory
> is visible.  If this isn't the case, then I think this would be a fine
> improvement over GtkFileChooser (that is, fixing something the GTK guys
> have screwed up already ^_^).


Actually, 'confusing' is not exactly the right word. Probably a better 
way to describe it would be to say that the GTK location bar presents 
too much information in such a way that it slightly obscures the most 
commonly needed information.

The most common case "what is the $CWD?" should be be clearer or more 
obvious than it is in the GtkFileChooser.

-- b