[Thunar-dev] * ala firefox

[Benedikt Meurer]

Emil Jacobs wrote:
>>Hello!
>>
>>Here is another suggestion from another pesky little end user! ;) ...
>>
>>I know that you have desided not to use a spatial filmanager and you want this to be a small and easy-using little thing and I dont know is someone aks this allready ... but what about adopting tabs from firefox?
>>
>>I know that it is a bit unnecessary if you already have a sidebar for orientation and bokmarks ... but sometimes you want two or more filmanagers open for comparison or to quick copy between them or something like that ... but you dont want a lot of windows open that clutter up your screen ... Tabs is something I really like with firefox and I think it could be a good idea for a filemanager too!
> 
> I second this wholeheartedly!
> I also believe that tabs are a very handy feature, it should at least
> be an option for users to have. The very succes of konqueror as a
> filemanager proofs that (I know a lot of persons, including myself,
> that use konqueror in their respective environment without ever using
> kde).
> But it seems that the main developers (afaik read: Benedikt) hate it
> for some weird reason, I would like some good explaination on why
> really (besides "bad habbit" I got thrown at in irc ;))

In my opinion, konqueror is overly complex. It's the opposite of 
simplicity (speaking solely about the file manager now). Open Konqueror 
and the first thing you see is about 31(!) interactive UI elements 
(where the menu bar counts as 1 single control and not speaking about 
scrollbars). For such a simple thing like a file manager this is quite a 
lot! There was a professional usability review of KDE some time ago and 
the result was that KDE's UI's are too complex and too inconsistent. 
Maybe they fixed a few of that issues in the meantime. I'm looking at 
Konqueror 3.3.2 (default config) now and it still features the same 
horribly overloaded UI that was critized in the usability review. Just 
my very personal opinion, tho.

And now on to the tabs: They add little to no value to a file manager, 
as you don't use a file manager like a terminal emulator or a web 
browser (well, maybe you do, but the average user does not). Instead it 
adds a lot of complexity (both in the UI as there's another level of 
sensitivity for the elements, and in the implementation). I'd say too 
much complexity for a version 1.0 of a _simple_ file manager.

And I don't think that this "very success of konqueror" proofs anything. 
I think a lot more people are using ROX with Xfce, but that doesn't make 
ROX very successful.

Remember, Thunar is not meant to replace all existing file managers. If 
you need tabs in a file manager, use Konqueror.

I hope you'll understand how important it is to say "no" to certain 
requests to keep the software simple, lightweight and easy to use.

> Cheers
> Emil

greets,
Benedikt