[Thunar-dev] Classic UI

[Benedikt Meurer]

Erik Harrison wrote:
>>I know I'm new to this list, and I'd hate to chime in at the last
>>second with zero earned credibility and lots of opinions, but might as
>>well share, right?  The screenshot looks very nice, but I guess I
>>would ask this - and I ask seriously, but semi-rhetorically - what's
>>the draw of a new file manager if it doesn't have something to make it
>>truly unique from a user standpoint?  In other words - what about
>>Thunar will define it as something worthwhile? Or is it supposed to be
>>intentionally oversimplified - should it be the "lynx" of file
>>managers?
>>
>>Distributions like the apparently-on-hiatus Cobind ran XFCE 4.0 w/
>>Nautilus by default.  If the fm feels and looks like Nautilus, then
>>why would someone want to learn where the options and preferences have
>>been organized in a new fm?  Why not just actually use Nautilus? I
>>hope the only answer isn't speed or "bloat." On my system, everything
>>is fast.  Those terms don't mean much to anyone outside of the current
>>Linux community anyway.
> 
> I would agree with you in principle, though I'd call you on the later points.
> 
> Thunar is meant to be simple and fast. It is to Nautilus what all of
> Xfce is to Gnome.
> 
> The goal is not to so much do something new, but do something right -
> learnable and simple UI, fast, functional. Lots of UI design going on
> here, as you may notice, and on the Wiki there is some solid generic
> implementation discussion.

Erik is 100% right here. It's less important to create something new 
that you have never seen before on this planet; but instead, it's 
important to create something useful.

And the term speed matters. On my workstation (which is a very decent 
system), Xfce is up within a few seconds, but if I use nautilus instead 
of xfdesktop, it takes atleast twice the time for the desktop to come 
up. Ok, most of the stuff here is built with extra debug code, etc., but 
still, nautilus is too slow on startup. And it adds a bunch of 
dependencies, which makes it unsuitable for small installations.

>>For me, it would have to be features, or even just one good feature.
>>For example, I always liked the BeOS Tracker style "Copy To...," "Move
>>To...," and "Create Link..." subtrees in the right click menu.   Those
>>are extremely useful features I think it's rightful for the file
>>manager to include.  The column view, which I see in the wiki (in
>>mockup format) looks great too.

While I like the "Copy/Move/Link To..." menu from BeOS tracker as well, 
I don't think that it fits with the browser mode very well. To me, this 
seems to be a perfect feature for spatial views. Just my 0.02€ tho...

>>Address bar - yes! Fantastic! Don't lose it.  For the majority of the
>>world (trust me, I am an admin for hundreds of users), the difference
>>between a file manager and a web browser is unnoticed.  The more they
>>look alike, the more likely that people can and will figure things out
>>for themselves.  Address bars are a good thing!

This is the important question: Location bar or path bar?

greets,
Benedikt