How To Deal With The Spatial Paradigm 38
PostThis writes that there's been "a lot of talk about Gnome's spatial Nautilus lately and so Christian Paratschek puts everything into perspective weighing in the pros and cons of this particular user interface paradigm. In any case, there are always alternatives."
The better question.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Apple's Quicktime is a great (horrible) example.
http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/qti
Care of the "Interface Hall of Shame"
Re:The better question.... (Score:2)
Gimmee a break, Ive 3 trolls to feed at home, and a sick wife....
How to avoid the debate alltogether... (Score:1, Insightful)
The spacial vs. browser-style debate isn't worth winning, because either way you're sticking to metadata-ignorant heirarchies that humans just aren't very good at dealing with beyond a certain point.
Even better than the real thing (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.obsession.se/gento o
There are many of this sort, but Gentoo is by far the best. Sadly doesn't the author like GTK2, so he won't port it=(
It's all about BeOS... (Score:1)
What I dont get... (Score:1)
In Linux, I still prefer to use the command line. I'm just a keyboard whore.
My first real computer (trs-80's don't count) was an Amiga and it used a spatial interface - tho I preferred to use Directory Opus, an ol' midnight commander style file manager, for my
The only mistake (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad enough to change default behavior on a user (at least it was during a major release) but all they had to do was add a preference to "open new folders in the same window" .. the same way windows does, and a lot less people would be upset.
Personally, I think the spatial idea is pretty useful when you have multiple monitors, and lots of space to spread out the "remembered" window locations. On a single screen the benefit just isn't as big.
--Cycon
Re:The only mistake (Score:1, Informative)
With OSX they just changed the behavior, which you could change in a preference.
With Windows I think it's what... hold down co
Re:The only mistake (Score:1, Offtopic)
Solution: use Redhat's hack to put the gconf lock in
Solution two: run the gconfds on the NFS server, set "ORBIIOPIPv4=1" in
Newbs (Score:5, Insightful)
The question I want to ask is: what about those of us that are NOT newbies? The author states early on that he tries to avoid anything that would expose the filesystem tree abstraction to the end user. Maybe you could argue that it is good for newbie users, maybe not. But it DEFINITELY isn't good for non-newbie users.
Look, the filesystem is a TREE. That's what it IS. Any metaphor that you try to make the filesystem fit some other pattern will only take you so far. A tree is a very nice, clean structure. A lot of its expressive power is lost when you try to impose some strange alternate metaphor on it. When you deal with the filesystem as a tree, any operation that maps well onto trees, you can map well onto filesystems. It's a powerful abstraction.
And quite frankly, don't we WANT newbies to be learning the actual behavioural properties of the tools they use, rather than an artificially constructed interface which we deem them more able to use? Won't this lead to more intelligent users?
Personally, I think it's insulting to people to say that they can't "deal" with basic abstract structures. It's not THAT complicated guys. And we're not that smart for knowing how filesystems work. MOST people in the world can grok the concept perfectly fine, you just have to teach them. Perhaps some people feel threatened by that?
I was an avid gnome user. I stopped using it once I noticed the clear trend for gnome to assume that I'm dumb. That I can't deal with certain choices - which are better made by the developers than by me. Limiting excess in choice is fine.. but there is a fine line between reasonable limits, and top-down control. I think gnome crossed the line a ways back.
Keep your spatial browser. I'll keep my trees.
-Laxitive
Re:Newbs (Score:1)
A computer is a tool, and should be approached as such. A user (newbie or otherwise) should not be forced to adapt the
Re:Newbs (Score:2)
Rubbish. Most of the time the file structure is irrelevant to the computer. The tree structure is so that people can find things easily.
Re:Newbs (Score:1)
Imagine if the file system was unstructured (a flat list), but with the filenames given standardised names like
Re:Newbs (Score:2)
They're used in computers because computers (especially OS) are designed by humans, and humands find it easier to work with. There's really no objective reason to have /bin /sbin /opt etc. separate.
Re:Newbs (Score:2)
wow, nice contradiction here.
How do you approach a tool you're not familiar with? You learn to use it. Nobody is 'born' with the spatial paradigm deeply rooted in one's brain. Heck, it's not even all that natural to boot with - you don't naturally remember objects by position, but by their relationships with each other. That'
Re:Newbs (Score:1)
Anyway, spatial Nautilus is designed to utilise what spatial memory abilities you have to allow for flatter directory tree structures. This is what was demonstrated in the article. Other Gnome projects are doing the same (notice that the menus in Gnome projects are becoming smaller, with much less menu nesting?). Deep hierarchies are being avoided in all aspects of Gnome, and Nautilus demonstra
Why I dislike spatial (Score:1)
Re:Why I dislike spatial (Score:3, Informative)
Neat. Also, completely, utterly, un-spatial. But a beautiful clue for all the spatial zealots saying their way is the one true way. Thank you.
it's great.... (Score:2)
Dead American programmers tell no tales! (Score:2)
From the article: First, I wanna tell you what I usually do to make a computer easy and consistent to use for a newbie...
The Grim Reaper replies: Shut up, you American! You Americans, all you do is talk and talk, and say "let me tell you something," and "I just wanna say..." Well, you're dead now, so shut up!
Ahhh, I feel better now. :)
Re:Dead American programmers tell no tales! (Score:2)
Oops, I see now Christian is a fellow German; pardon my knee-jerk reaction.
He still writes like a stereotypical American, though. ;)
Just break Gnome (Score:1)
Re:Just break Gnome (Score:2, Informative)
How many do you need? - Fluxbox (or blackbox or *box), Windowmaker, IceWM, Enlightenment, XPde, None, ION, Ratpoison, or the several more that I cant be bothered to find for you...
Alternativley, you could use google to find out how to turn the spatial interface off & use the old nautilius
Or perhaps you'd be happer with the huge range of choices on Windows - explorer.exe, explorer.exe or possibly explorer.exe
Tree stucture are natural and easy to comprehend (Score:2, Insightful)
If there really is a need for all these articles that explain what spatial file browsing is, how it works, and how it should be used -- then there is something seriously wrong with spatial browsing.
The ordinary tree structure has worked for millions of users, most were of them newbies when they got introduces to file browsing. I wager that there are no one (or very close to no one) who'll complain about the idea of a tree structure.
If people can use an ordinary index in a book, they can understand a tr
Re:Tree stucture are natural and easy to comprehen (Score:1)
Spatial Paradigm is completely retarded (Score:4, Funny)
NEWSFLASH: he actually likes spatial browsing! (Score:1)
What we really need is better file metadata and indexing tools...
I have 16000 files in my documents tree... how exactly am I supposed to arrange those in a two-level directory hierarchy?