The recently announced GNOME 2.6 has finally brought many features long awaited by the Linux desktop fans. GNOME 2.6 is all about ease of use, performance and unification and while it’s unfortunately hard to say that the GNOME desktop feels fast, it certainly began to be really easy to use and it has consistent look and feel — and that consistency is what makes up for most of the quality of a graphical user environment. UPDATE: Scroll down the article to read some added commentary.
Among lots of reviews of the new GNOME that have appeared on the Web,
there is no single one that does not mention the spatial Nautilius
file browser. While most reviewers find it really faster than the
old one (which is true), they seem to hate the spatial mode and blame the GNOME
developers for not providing an option to switch it off. They say: “you would
not like the web browser to open each link in a new window, wouldn’t you?
so why do you make me open each folder in a new windows and do not provide
an easily accessible option to switch this mode off?”.
Well, that point of view is one-sided. The whole thing about spatiality
is to provide the user with a real-life-alike interface
that keeps objects’ state and does not alter the contents of any
physical object if not ordered to. Browser mode folder windows
violate these rules by replacing physical object (folder,
represented on screen by a window) contents
with new set of icons every time the user opens a new folder,
and not retaining folders’ state (view mode, sort order,
icon placement).
Think of your hard drive contents as of a desk full of drawers.
Every time you put something into a drawer, you may be sure
that the next time you open the same drawer it will be in
the same place (and the drawer itself will remain in the same
place). So, when you open a folder and try to locate a
particular icon, it should be where you put it before.
Simple?
Now I can hear all that “what about the web browser” croud again.
Please imagine, what’s the closest real-life representation of
a web page? Well, it might be a book. While reading a book,
you can see only two pages at once, and every time you turn
the page, the new set of two pages replaces the two seen
before. And that’s exactly how web browsers work: clicking
a link replaces what you are seeing with the new content,
unless the link points to another web site (in which case
it may open a new browser window for your convenience).
Reading the book, you may even put some bookmarks on different
pages and that’s exactly how tabbed web browsing works:
you may keep several sub-pages of the same web site temporarily
bookmarked, switch between them with one mouse click
and get rid of them (remove the bookmark) when they are
no longer needed.
So, people in fact love when the machine works in a way
resembling behaviour of real-life objects, but it seems that only when
the “spatial” application is a web browser: they accept
the book metaphor with web pages, but reject the drawer
metaphor with folders and files. Sometimes they even
abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening
multiple pages – not subpages of the same web site! – in
multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people
who never open more than one browser window, viewing all
pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily
set of newspapers together before reading them…
What is the real cause of all these attacks on the spatial Nautilius?
In my opinion, it is just bad file organisation coupled with
a bunch of old bad habits. It’s really hard to use a spatial
file browser if someone keeps his or her files in a ten-folder-deep
structure. Browser-mode file browsers hide the lack of thought
and organisation in the filesystem structure; spatial ones do not.
Folder structure should be simple and as shallow as possible,
and the “master” folders (something like My Images or
My Music folders known from Windows) should have their own
shortcuts on a GNOME panel, so that playing your favourite
song would only require opening My Music from the panel,
opening the appriopriate album folder and double-clicking
a file icon, instead of browsing straight from the home
directory (or, worse, the root one) through several levels
of subfolders.
Keeping the filesystem structure clear will also reduce symptoms of the next
problem mentioned in many reviews: screen clutter. By the way, I cannot imagine
how spatial browsing must lead to screen clutter: opening folders
with double-middle-click or Shift-double-click closes the parent folder
window at once. And even if it is not enough, one can click one field
in the gconf configuration editor and turn Nautilitus into
“classical” non-spatial file browser. Don’t know how to
use gconf? Then you shouldn’t change the way Nautilitus works,
I presume.
What’s worst, attacks on the spatial browser try to stop the innovation.
While it is hard to call the GNOME’s spatial Nautilius “innovative”, as spatial
browsers have a long history, to mention only the famous Macintosh Finder,
it is certainly innovative to bring this idea back to life, after all these
years of browser-like file managers domination. Even Apple and Microsoft,
after years of commitment to spatial interfaces (though much half-hearted
in case of Microsoft), turned back and tried to ride the ‘web browser
alike interface’ hype, with not so brilliant results. And now, when the time
to ressurect the spatial ideas has finally come, people accustomed to the
bad interface design try to defend it only because for the past years
they have been using it! They seem to be againt re-learning the new interface,
even if it promises to be so much more straightforward and natural,
and keep using something that reminds Windows 1.0 MS-DOS Executive
or Windows 3.0 File Manager and not a modern file browser.
While spatial Nautilius is not perfect (why oh why does it need 2
minutes to list 3000 files stored in one folder while Windows NT 4.0
Explorer lists 10000 files in 15 seconds on the same machine…), it is able
to recreate the desktop metaphor that started the graphical desktop revolution
with Xerox Alto and Star so many years ago. Please, don’t stop all these
good ideas coming back again. And remember that the spatial applications do
not organise your work by themselves: you have to help them and keep your data
organised yourself and then you will see how much spatial interface may make
work easier and more effecient.
Radoslaw Sokol is a network administrator in Poland.
OSNews’ EIC’s opinion:
Personally, I am all for the spatial interface, but not on top of the current hierarchical file systems. When filesystems become fully DB-based and MIME-based with no folders (they would be sorted based on extended attributes criteria, not based on folders) *then* a spatial interface would make absolute sense because each view/window would represent a different “search” result based on attribute search: For example, “show me the files that belongs to XX package, were created before 2004, are JPEG or PNG and their EXIF information includes the word ‘Greece Holidays'”, a query created by an easy to use dialog, like in this example. Each query can be saved down if the user wishes to, and because each one is unique, it would need to be represented in a different result window, that’s where the spatiality should come in.
But as things are today, the spatial Nautilus is going live before its time. Explorer-like file managers are a better bet for the kind of filesystems we utilize today. Yes, spatiality is the future. Not just yet though because the filesystem part needs a grassroot “upgrade” too.
The above example comes from BeOS, where its file manager, Tracker, is also a spatial file manager (unfortunately also on top of a hierarchical FS with folders, so spatiality was also not well suited despite the fact BFS was an advanced fs for its time). When Tracker became open source in 2000, the FIRST thing users added to the codebase was the option to not open each folder on its own window. It was the most common problem users had with the fm, just like today with Nautilus. This says a lot and unfortunately the Gnome Project didn’t learn from history and they basically repeated the same mistake. — Eugenia
I guess I don’t understand it. To me it was annoying when this “functionality” was all that was available in Windows. Nothing is worse then a new window opening each time I open a folder. That was not liked when MS did it, so why should it be different now? This is not a filing cabinet, it is my computer. My files are organized as they would be in a regular physical filing cabinet. Am I the only one that finds keeping the filing cabinet drawers open when I open another one annoying? I would not do that with a physical file cabinet, so why would I with a virtual one? There needs to be a way to turn that off IMHO.
I use “nautilus –no-desktop –browser” and it works like it always used to.. no annoying new windows for stuff
There has to be something wrong with your setup. I’m on FC2 and displaying the contents of /dev (which has 7531 items) takes on 4-5 seconds.
I’ve been using the spatial browser for a while now, and the more I use it, the more it make sense. We should all remember that this is mostly a first attempt at it (I don’t think Win 95’s file manager was in any way the same…). With time I think the whole idea can be polished a little to make it work better for everyone.
Right now by biggest request would be a button, maybe in the bottom right corner, that will close ALL of the windows that have opened. I know you can use ctrl-shift-w to close the parent windows, and then close the child window you are using, but that is more steps than you need.
I and many others I know personally love spatial; however, I agree that the option ought to be there to use the browser mode as well. Thankfully, it’s already in GNOME CVS. If you really want it now, you can compile nautilus 2.7.1. Or you can throw this on your system: http://gtweakui.sourceforge.net/ Hope that helps. Cheers.
I’m not positive, but I think a shortcut/menu entry for closing all windows is planned or already implenmented in the 2.7/2.8 branch.
Download Nautilus from the CVS, or wait for Nautilus 2.6.3 and the “Close All” button will be there. I wrote about this in our previous discussion about Nautilus: It was added just a few days ago:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=142632
>”I even know few people who never open more than one
>browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do
>not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before
>reading them…”
Strangely, while i’m browsing everything in tabs in only one browser window i don’t glue newspapers together.
Also, i like spatial Nautilus. And for massive file managing a good file manager tool like ‘mc’.
“Don’t know how to use gconf? Then you shouldn’t change the way Nautilitus works”
Strangely, while i’m browsing everything in tabs in only one browser window i don’t glue newspapers together.
That is strange. I also browse everything in tabs in one browser window. Unlike you, though, I glue a daily set of newpapers together. It makes them more portable, I’ve found.
I was a “hardcore” KDE user, but after reading about spatial Nautilus it getting my interest what it is.
Now, I use Fedora2… not with KDE… with Gnome but spatial disabled.
Because spatial is in my eyes like Win95 with remembering the position/size, nothing more. Hmm, sorry, bullsh* (IMO)
But it’s a great promotion for Gnome 2.6 (which was becomes really good and stable, compared to the buggy 2.0/2.2/2.4 ones)
While I agree with you that the spatial interface, and its attempt to be helpful towards user, I cannot agree with you on the fact that users not liking it are trying to stop Innovation or whatever else.
If I am accustomed to a certain way of thinking or organizing stuff, then I, user, don’t want to relearn how to do it from scratch, because I was already “productive” before, because the upgrade to another way of doing things forces me an unexpected stop while I reteach my hands how to move between the keyboard and the mouse.
Think about all the flames about playing Quake 1 with the keyboard or the joystick (aaaaargh!), or instead playing it with “wsad” keys as the arrows and the mouse for aiming/shooting… there were many flames, and many broken legs, but in the end playing with “wsad”+mouse became a standard in FPS, and now Return to Castle Wolfenstein ships with it as the default configuration… otherwise people would have had their butt kicked in online games.
So, Tabbed Browsing (imho) is the winner interface for internet browsing (it helps me to spend less time chasing information around), but if for filesystem people will eventually come to appreciate Spatial Navigation because it really saves time, they will use and adopt it en-masse… in the meanwhile users will do what users do, try to relearn a way to do things spending time on it, complain and piss off developers and other busy people and waste everyone’s time… and since you are a netadmin you should know it
Gnome made the bold choice to show a new way of doing things, it was PLANNED and mechanically expected that people started to complain. The best thing is to do what, for example, the White Wolf publishing company do (listen to real paying customers) and point people to the nice article by Colin Charles:
http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html
… and spatial should be configurable like Rox-Filer, to open a directory in the same (spatial) window (middle-mouse click)
So it could getting more usable than it is now. I H A T E 1000000 windows on my desktop.
Mozilla/Opera have tabs so you have only one window open, spatial goes the other way, this is not the right one.
Why should I be forced to abandon an efficient method because I am not up to speed on the undocumented terminology, meta-clicks, and commandline options of a browser?
That is pure arrogance.
when i read the article, i found something really “funny” about it. it advocates the spatial browser, by accusing the users of “bad habits”. what where the author thinking about?
there have been some application for the computer that have survived years and years, just because they let us make things easier, just by NOT emulating reality. take as an example Norton Commander (and it’s current incarnations in Windows/Total Commander, Midnight Commander, or any other workalike): why on earth would someone want to use Total Commander instead of windows explorer, while the explorer have further use of the “folder, file” methaphor? well… in my case, because it gets the work done, faster and easier! take as an example the “invert selection key”, something not implementable in a 1:1 metaphor of real life. we don’t have a “get all this files, but that little one in the middle” in our real life drawers. but indeed, selecting ONE folder, and then negating the selection is something extremely useful (e.g. for a massive file deletion).
there are a host of this examples, being the “NC metaphor” one of the most strinking ones. but the idea behind is: why do i want to emulate real life when i can get things done easier another way? ok, it might take a little more time to get accostumed, or even to learn, but well… we didn’t even found basic math or correct syntax particularly intuitive when we learned it at school, did we?
Does anyone seriously want your computer to remember the last position a certain folder’s window was placed? Does anyone seriously want to have to manage new windows? What’s the use of any of it?
To me, the most comfortable form of file management is the single-window filemanager and wonderful “copy/move by context menu” that Tracker in BeOS provides. I can double-click my volume on the desktop to open a new window … navigate to the folder I desire, and do all my file management from within that one window with minimal clicking and fuss.
To each his own, I guess.
Because sometimes things need to be changed. I mean, who still complains that his computer doesn’t boot into BASIC?
When GEOS first added a desktop based file manager, it used a spatial implementation (mainly because the older file manager it was based off had an MDI interface, and created a new window whenever you opened a folder).
The #1 request for the next version of GEOS was to make folders open into the current window rather than create a new window. There were two main reasons for it:
1) The vast majority of the time, when you browse to a sub folder, you don’t care about the parent folder anymore. Opening a new window just created extra clutter. Having to hold down a key while using the mouse to get the behavior you want 99% of the time is annoying, and just plain bad interface design.
2) Opening a folder would cause the new window to appear in a different location than where you currently were working. Again, due to the fact that you rarely want to continue using the parent folder, this caused an unnecessary disruption of your workflow.
When I got a job working on the GEOS source, I spent a lot of time improving the file manager. The only big change I did was making an option for folders to open in the same window or in a new window. Past that, all I did was various polishing (the original version was done on a very tight time schedule). The end result was a *huge* amount of positive feedback.
Also, before saying spatial makes more sense, try finding the *really* clueless computer users. As in the people that have owned a Mac for 10 years but still have trouble doing much more than signing on to AOL. They get really confused by all the new windows opening up as go through their folders.
Just a note here: Spatial Gnome for me does not feel like Win95 (or earlier) but instead just like AmigaOS. And that is a good thing as that is the OS closest to my heart!
It is gconf-editor. The GNOME developers have to stop abusing it and write proper configuration dialogs. Being usable does not mean removing all the options and being forced to use an application in one way, its about being able to be flexible to be friendly to the user. If they had put a big shiny checkbox saying “click here to disable spatial” then all the whiners would shut up and get on with their lives.
So, Although I liked spatial, the lack of options in GNOME has made me run back to my beloved uber configurable world. Even XFCE, which is very minimal lets you configure the hell out of it from the GUI.
Well, there is nothing wrong with gconf (and the gconf-editor is just a GUI to browse the settings).
All settings are stored in Gconf, not only those that doesn’t exist in the GUI of the application. It’s a very powerful and convinient way of storing/retreiving/monitoring preferences.
going off-topic:
A lot of the flames about gconf/gconf-editor seems to come from people who has no knowledge of it what so ever and directly associates it with the registry hell in windows. The only similarity between GConf and the Registry is the fact that both provide a tree view of the settings…
there have been a lot of articles around telling oh how great this new spatial browsing is and how much its not like windows 95. i would like to point out that if this much evangelizing is needed, perhaps it should be rethought? i tried it (or rather ran into it and was annoyed by it when i checked out gnome 2.6) and frankly the “folder is the window” is just opening each folder in a new window. there is no difference. get over it.
in windows go to folder settings or whatever. click open each folder in new window. also enable the remember each folder or window’s (i forget i havent used windows in a while) settings. there you go “spatial browsing” is enabled. the folder is the window except we’re not making a big deal out of it and its easily disabled.
People seem to forget that OS/2 have a brilliant spatial desktop, that now is more than 10 years old. Every folder remembered its position, you could put individual desktop background in each folder, sort the content in different ways, each folder could list data in different ways – e.g. in a tree view or in a detailed view, you could filter the content of each folder in different ways, it was even possible to make a folder into a “Work area”, which meant that all the programs opened from that folder would be minimized when the folder was minimized.
With OS/2’s brilliant CORBA based desktop implementation you could even extend the behaviour of folders and the hole desktop in your own way. One of the best of these extensions is probably xworkplace (http://www.xworkplace.org/), which is still actively maintained.
To me it seems that GNOME is just reinventing the wheel, but on the other hand the current direction of the GNOME desktop really makes me want to try Linux again 🙂
I hope they don’t remove it ;P
What’s going on here is that there’s a new feature and it has been decided that this is best for all. Some people, in particular those who use linux don’t like it when other people choose for them. This is the whole reason they use linux in the first place.
So trying to force feed them the new feature by removing the feature it replaces has a very predictable effect. The fact that the gnome developers didn’t see this coming is a good example of how out of touch they are with their (intended) users. The dogma of today is that users are stupid and hence must not have choice since they are so easily confused. This dogma has replaced the dogma that everything should be configurable and that configuration is an excellent replacement for proper design choices. Both dogmas are in fact wrong (i.e. not always true).
Modern GUIs usually have more than one way of accomplishing a given task (e.g. a simple way (for the easily confused), a fast way and a flexible way). These are not in any way mutually exclusive. Opening folders is one of the most basic functionalities of a UI with a long history in many UI environments (and a particularly poor record in the gnome environment). Users want choice here and removing it has the predictable effect that users will get annoyed because the GUI gets in the way of how they want to use it.
I used to be of the same opinion as the author, but lately, I’m simply not so sure.
A lot of the canonical GUI paradigms were developed 20 years ago. As common sense as they seem, computers of today are not very much like computers of that day. In 1984, a system with a 10M hard drive and 1M of RAM would have been fully loaded. A 640×480 display was high resolution. Nobody *had* web browsers or email. The chances of you having more than a few hundred files you actually wanted to deal with were pretty slim.
The thing is, spatial file browsers are essentially built on the idea that you, the user, are a better organizer than the computer. Having all those sticky-state windows is, in effect, a representation of a physical workspace. When you have *thousands* of files you want to deal with, this paradigm breaks down. You need to get at your data, but you don’t need — or want — to be spending time arranging it.
I really didn’t think I’d like OS X Panther’s browser window, but the simple fact is that it’s really easy to navigate in quickly, easy to bring up multiple windows and drag and drop between them. And increasingly, I’m finding myself locating files with the quick-search feature, and launching programs and even documents with QuickSilver (very similar to the better-known LaunchBar). I remember the name of what I want, but not where it is. If I was going to name a great must-have feature for file/project organization that OS X doesn’t have, it’d be even less spatial: I’d like something like BeOS’s saved live queries that could be used as virtual folders. (Have a “folder” on your desktop that contains all the word processing documents you’ve edited in the last week, or all the documents named after the current project you’re working on, regardless of type or location.)
There are some innovative approaches I’ve read about that are still spatially-oriented, like Jef Raskin’s “Zooming User Interface” concept, but if I recall correctly even the ZUI would have a quick instant-search feature (“leap”) — and in practice that would be used constantly. I’m neither knocking nor praising Nautilus’s current iteration here; I’m suggesting, though, that just maybe some of the ideas in more recent GUIs that have the interface gurus screaming have more applicability to the way people actually use computers in 2004 than ideas developed for the Xerox Star do.
So trying to force feed them the new feature by removing the feature it replaces has a very predictable effect.
It was not removed, the old feature (if you want to call it so) is still accessible in at least 3 different ways. But yeah, you can say there was some forcing in setting it as the default.
The fact that the gnome developers didn’t see this coming is a good example of how out of touch they are with their (intended) users.
How are you sure they didn’t see it coming? And how are you sure they don’t aim for a userbase that still hasn’t switched to linux, and so shouldn’t take those critics coming from power users with a grain of salt?
If you look at Novell, Redhat, etc., they are selling linux workstations (not servers) to office workers in companies not necessarily computer-related.
That’s why gnome, unlike projects such as fluxbox, kde, enlightenment, etc. aim to make a desktop very simple to use, not only a chokeful of features. That’s why the MacOS ripoffs you sometimes find in gnome (and that go further than “let’s copy the 1337 looking theme”), that’s why they can’t rely on the geeks’ whines about the changes (in the first place their bug reports, trolls, etc. are pretty unlikely to help them reach that userbase) and that’s why sometimes they seem lost of touch with current desktops. They’re over the mentality “let’s do better than windows mimicking it”, more like “if I can make a desktop that granny can use, it can be used by everyone, no matter if I have to take some pieces of design from other desktops”.
Some people think that a free desktop that aims to please enterprises is wrong. I disagree and say that if freedom in software is about choice, it only seems logical that there is such a project.
Specially if you’d like to hack on free software and get paid by an enterprise (and not only for servers).
Spatial viewing makes more sense conceptually than the browser view; the only thing that makes it harder to use in reality is the interface to it, ie. what keypresses and mouse buttons you use to manipulate the view. So I think all that stops people liking this system is because the developers haven’t yet found the best set of keypresses to make it work.
“When you have *thousands* of files you want to deal with, this paradigm breaks down.”
You hit the nail on the head. I thought I read that you can approach the computer in two ways: either (1) the user is in control and manages everything, or (2) the computer manages things by itself.
(1) is the Macintosh way of doing things. In the classic Mac OS, the amount of data to manage was rather small so that this approach works well.
With too many things to manage, this approach fails and (2) is needed. Examples of it are iTunes/JuK/rhythmbox, iPhoto, WinFS, and the Unix and Windows systems in general. Most people don’t do things in WINDOWS or /usr/local by themselves, they use control panels and package managers for that.
The advantage is that you can store larger amounts of data without getting lost. The disadvantage is that the computer becomes more of an un-understandable black box that magically manages your data.
Now does the fact that Windows and Linux accumulate more and more files which the user isn’t supposed to touch, mean that spatial browsing is outdated? I don’t think so. I think this is another area in which modern operating systems are getting too fat.
I mean, who should be in control of a computer? With the dishwasher, it is fine if the computer is. But with a PC, I think the user should be in control. Else, (s)he can be scared away by the complexity of the underlying system. Additionally, it can be very frustrating if the computer does the wrong thing, automatically, without the user wanting it, and without the user being able to correct it.
So I think: don’t remove the Spatial Nautilus, but reduce the complexity of the system. Hide /usr, /bin, /sbin, /etc, /lib, /var and /tmp from the user, and replace them with simpler things. For example, make /usr an overview of installed packages, which then behave like normal files. Make /etc an overview of YaST control panels, which again behave like normal files, so that if you copy a “setting file” to another computer, it just works.
The best solution, of course, would be moving to something like RiscOS, but that is not doable at this moment.
Everybody here who’s arguing against a spatial interface seems to be using the arguments which have already been covered (and refuted) in the article.
(I’m sorry, but I haven’t tried Gnome 2.6.)
But the author says it uses a _long_ time to display just a thousand files, what’s that about ?
Give me a fast filemanager before you add all those features.
I mean, TWO minutues displaying THOUSAND files,man !
“The whole thing about spatiality is to provide the user with a real-life-alike interface that keeps objects’ state and does not alter the contents of any physical object if not ordered to. Browser mode folder windows violate these rules by replacing physical object (folder, represented on screen by a window) contents with new set of icons every time the user opens a new folder, and not retaining folders’ state (view mode, sort order, icon placement).”
What a lot of rubbish! A browser mode file manager *can* retain folders’ state (if I remember correct KDE’s Konqueror does exactly that if configured to do so). A browser mode file manager does *not* alter content if not ordered (by click) to show new content. Naturally it happens to be in the same window. But of course I get a “new set of icons” and I can tell you I also get a new set of filenames. The *only* thing that differs between spatial and browser mode is that in spatial mode a new window is opened and in browser mode not. It is ok for me if *you* like to have new windows but don’t tell *others* some nonsense about it.
i havent commented on the issue before, and some of these (if not all) have been brought up before but i feel i must add my $.02 to the debate (this is starting to feel like vi vs emacs)
this is win95 all over again. i have yet to see any arguement against this that wasnt just simply “no, it isnt” without anything substancial for support. the windows arent the folders in gnome any more than in win95 except for seemingly more options for the folder in gnome but then again being from 10 years later i would HOPE that would be the case.
the author is rather full of himself if he thinks his way of organizing folders is the “one true way” (which is how this article reads). if i put all my music into one folder it would be extremely large and much harder to find what i want. same with my documents, downloads, and pretty much anything else i have stored.
99% of the time when i navigate to a child folder from a parent folder i have no use for the parent folder again. what point is there in keeping it open? why do i have to use a hotkey to close it as the child opens? shouldnt this be the other way around (ie, use a hotkey when you want to keep the parent)? also i very RARELY do file operations (such as move/copy/etc) between parents and children, but instead do lots and lots of file activity between folders which are cousins. this requires me to navigate between
no good way to close the stream of windows in one swoop UNLIKE win95 (hold shift, hit the X in the upper right, watch as the folder closes and all of its parents close with it). unable to manipulate the entire set of open folders from the task switcher as though they were one unit even though they get grouped up rather quickly.
no way to turn it off from the logical place for this setting in the gui (in folder window -> edit menu -> preferences -> should be checkbox somewhere in here). didnt anyone think this through?
i have seen many a claim that it is more efficient, i want to see the studies linked that support this claim because IME it isnt any slower nor any faster once you get used to it, it is just different.
i honestly think that microsoft’s filemanager/explorer treeview on left side folder navigation was an excellent way to go. i have seen something for osx that also looks like it would be easy to use and very powerful (although i dont know if it was native to osx or a 3rd party addon). it had vertical panes for folders and as you opened up child folders, the parents would shift one pane to the left and a tab indicating what the folder name was was at the top of each pane. both of these methods are fast and easy to use with what would seem to me to be an easy learning curve. ( i would love to see gnome/kde get a file browser similar to the one for osx i mentioned)
that being said i still havent turned the behavior off on my boxes. i do most of my file manipulation from a command line and use the file dialog boxes within applications quite a bit. also all of the gui apps i want to run are in the gnome menu.
A computer screen is no desktop. Was never. I don’t dare saying “Will never”, but presently it is not. The harder you try to mimic a real desktop, the more it gets you into trouble. “Spatial” browsing is not new. Windows used to have this option “Open each folder in new window” since long, and I remember that the Amiga Workbench used to do “spatial” browsing in folders, too.
But read my lips: A computer screen is too small! Of course on a real desktop you browse spatially, there’s not other way you could handle multiple documents. But you have the space to do it, and you don’t have it on a computer screen. So while this Spatiality works out nicely in real life, and we’re used to it, it miserably fails on a computer screen! How do you stack documents on a computer screen, without losing track, and still with instant access to each document? It’s already difficult in real life, and nearly impossible on a view as limited as a small screen.
Just one example: You want to open a certain document and only have a vague notion where it is stored. So you open your “Documents” folder, then go through two or three indirections, maybe navigating backwards. This works just the same in a “spatial” as in a “traditional” browser, just that you use the “close” button in one case and the “back” button in the other. Eventually you find what you’re looking for and open the document. However, with “spatial”, you need N clicks vs 1 click to clean up the remainder of your search. This is not an advantage.
the true thing is not spatial nautilus but the fuck*d
gconf.
this tool is too bad why don’t use a simple text file to store
propreties ?
Good software design adheres to the way people act; bad software design adheres to the way developers think people ought to act.
Defending Gnome’s design choices by criticizing the behavior of its users, or by asserting that users need to change their behavior, is just plain wrong. This time, perhaps, Gnome has used the wrong metaphor.
It’s fine to use physical world models, such as “drawer” or “directory”, but that’s not the way I think of things. My exposure to computing began with Unix, so I learned a long time ago that the abstraction used to describe a collection of files on a disk is a “directory”. Many others entered computing via Windows and learned that the same collection of files is called a “folder”. Both words are an abstraction, a metaphor, just as the directory and file names that appear in a terminal window when I get a listing are also abstractions and metaphors.
I know these things are abstractions and metaphors, and I suspect most Gnome reviewers know that, too. The last thing we need is another well-intentioned creation of yet another metaphor that does not conform to the way we think about and use the machine.
BTW, I use browsers tabs specifically to open a bunch of unrelated pages and then go through them one by one. I don’t paste together physical newspapers because that’s obviously awkward and messy. But, I do open stories on the same subject or event from different news sites in tabs, and then read each of them in succession.
So by your reasoning, MacOS X is bad software design because it works in a different way than most users (read: the Windows crowd) are used to?
Give the user an option to change the setting without jumping through hoops. I don’t like it but that doesn’t mean no one can like it.
A “Close All” button might be replaced by Ctrl+click on the normal Close button. IIRC that was the way it was done in Windows.
(Just mentioning the idea so you don’t need an extra button)
Anyway, I don’t really appreciate a Spatial File Manager. I tend to have a hierarchical structure for a lot of things. That’s the way the file system is, isn’t it? I can’t use a shallow organization, and I navigate with a tree. click, click, click and I open only the deeper node, not the three on the way to it. And more to it, I don’t need those three on a windows each.
My problem with gconf is that it does nothing to help people use it and that every gnome installation I’ve tried lacks help files about gconf (as well as a lot of other help files and related documentation.)
If users are expected to employ gconf to make Gnome conform to their wishes, they ought to find all the help they need contained within the application itself. They ought to be able to use it without any knowledge of how Gnome is actually configured. They ought not to be expected to troll Google or look around the Gnome site for assistance. If users aren’t expected to use gconf, if it requires a familiarity with Gnome that users will not possess, maybe it ought not to be accessible to them.
is a 1:1 (and I mean 1:1) clone of total-commander
then I delete all the gnome/kde stuff and run it under icewm with a tool for desktop shortcuts (which is fine too)
I own a Mac and don’t see that much difference between it and Windows in terms of design metaphor. Different look and feel, yes. Some different capabilities, yes. Fundamentally different metaphor, no.
Someone was talking about tabs on browsers. Why not do it for file management. If you want to fork, then just middle click and it opens in a new tab.
I would use that. Having hundreds of windows open or having to remember which keystrokes to use is not a great useability idea for anyone other than power users.
‘Spatial’ sounds wonderful when you are sitting around discussing ‘paradigms’ etc, etc, but in reality it is just clumsy. I think people who like ‘spatial’ or those people with very few files to manage or those who just like the idea of something different.
The real problem is window management. The window frame today is optimized to be used infrequently and use as few screen space as possible. The close buttons have been made very small avoid accidental clicking. Window overviews (like taskbars) usually do not have any real structure and work best with a small number of windows.
All this is fine for regular document-centric work, when you don’t close more than 10 windows per hour and there is no relation between the windows, as all of them represent are stand-alone applications or documents.
But when you have windows with some hierarchy and you close at least 10 windows per minute, today’s window management becomes a nightmare. It just has not been designed for this scenario. A ‘close all’ button is a partial solution, but not enough.
…as an old swedish saying goes. In other words: if spatial browsing was a good idea, people wouldn’t be complaining about it.
The smoke tells me there’s a fire, so to say
The worst multimedia-programs, are the ones that mimic your hifi-stereo exactly. The usable programs (like itunes for example), seriously deviate from it.
It is utter bullshit to say that to make a good user interface, you need to mimic the real world exactly. You don’t. The reason why one uses a computer instead of a real life object, is because a computer is better at the task than that real life object.
Most real-life metaphors fall appart pretty fast. I mean, who puts a file in drawer in a drawer in a drawer? Maybe we should go back to the 2-level-deep directory hierarchy, because that would be more life-like?
“It’s really hard to use a spatial file browser if someone keeps his or her files in a ten-folder-deep structure. Browser-mode file browsers hide the lack of thought and organisation in the filesystem structure”
so you’re saying that it is lack of thought and organisation if i use several subfolders for my X thousand files?
I have to agree – mimicking real-life and explaining new users how to use their computer with some half-hearted metaphors propably isn’t the msot efficient thing to do about computer intefaces.
What’s this all about? “Hey, look – it’s a whole new world… But don’t worry you don’t have to learn anything new to take advantage of this ‘computer thing’…”.
But thats not the real problem. What disturbs me the most are all those editorilas about spatial Nautilus on the web that state how wrong everyone else is and that they are just to blind to see.
Just accept that there are two quite different approaches towards file management and that neither of their followers have the right to declare theirs is the “only right one”.
Maybe someone should write such an editorial about browser-like interface on OSNews, to let the people know there are people that disagree here as well.
I agree. I read that and thought, “So grouping and organizing files is a bad thing.” He says you want your organization as flat as possible. Well I could put everything in a single folder. Spatial works well that way, you only have to have one window.
On the left side, you’ve got your tree with all your objects. The view of this tree will only be changed, if the user wishes that (by expanding or collapsing the tree). On the right is the content of the currently chosen item (or realy-life-object how you call it) – be it a pdf file, picture or merely the contents of a folder. This is the same with the spatial browsing: You’ve got a window full with icons. Clicking them opens a new window. The root window has the role of a tree item in the old style nautilus and the new window has the role of the contents window on the right.
Working with spatial browsing requires the user the think in recursions (explain this to a poor secretary). The “termination” of the recursion leads to total chaos on the desktop, since trying to use a folder in a deeper level of the recursion requires to either finding the corresponding window in 5 or more open windows or clicking on the bottom left button and choosing the folder’s window, which leads to unreachable windows due to overlapping which again requires to move several windows around. On the other hand the old browsing behaviour provides a well sorted tree, where you can easily choose from which object you and can *decide* whether it will be shown in a new window or in the “contents view” on the right side.
I don’t really know what’s unspatial with the old behaviour. The new behaviour didn’t change much. Instead it made usage worse, since you’ve often got to find your requested window manually in a set of dozens of windows. The mozilla project managed this “many opened windows”-problem with tabs.
The new spatial behaviour tries to map a hierarchical real-life object – the file tree – into an object with a flat hierarchy – the desktop full of windows each of which corresponding to an object. This leads to confusion, especially for users that have problems with the understanding computers’ functionality. It isn’t that hard to think in hierachies, if you can see the whole tree, as it was the case with the old behaviour. With dozens of open windows there’s almost no way to see how the connection between those “objects” are (which one is the parent of the other, etc).
The idea of spatial browsing is very good, but the implementation is a very important factor, which decides about acceptance. gnome’s implementation is good, if you don’t open more than 3 or 4 “objects”, otherwise you’ll get lost in chaos – and nautilus is not the only application, the user want the have on the desktop.
I’d suggest an implemention, where you can always see the whole file tree. What about a sidebar integrated in the desktop-background, that can be opened and closed on request by clicking a small button? Choosing an object in this tree opens a new new windows with the corresponding content. The icons in the side-bar-tree must be split in two areas. Clicking one will expand the object, cklicking the other will open a new window as it happens in the new spatial behaviour. One could then implement features like showing a slim arrow from the clicked side-bar-tree-icon to the already opened window and bringing this window to the front. In this way, you’ve got your objects flying around on the screen, without losing the overview how they are interconnected. The sidebar may not be overlaped by the opened windows. This is just an idea.
greets Boris
Sometimes they even abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening multiple pages – not subpages of the same web site! – in multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them…
Actually I like to use tabs because it does not clutter my taskbar. I can have many, many programs open at one time.
I don’t even if the metaphor models the real world. A DE is different environment, and restricting people to following the way the real world works, is of course very limiting and creates restrictions for no reason.
Having been forced into using spatial for a while, I hated it at first. However, I soon got used to it and now I really love it. You would be amazed how much of your cognitive power is used trying to find things in explorer/nautilus/konquerer windows when they move around. After you get used to it, it is extreemly efficient.
One thing alot of people seem to miss is that spatial is crap for extablished file systems you have been browsing with another method. Howver, if you put the file there using a spatial file manager, you will find it very, very easily.
Note: The first thing I used to do in win 95 was turn off the open in new window thing
So you do misuse the tabs-metaphor. If the taskbar is inefficient, it should be replaced, not be worked around by the applications.
I mean, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, MS Word, MS Excel, Notepad and Paint Shop Pro all have the same problem, yet their solution is different: Mozilla has tabs, PSP has MDI and the Microsoft products neither. That’s not what I would call consistent and efficient.
An interesting piece. The only section that immediately jumps out at me is the part about tabbed browsing.
Personally, I have never encountered the suggestion before that tabbed browsing is like placing bookmarks in one book and that they should be used to navigate sub-sections of the same site.
Not only have I not heard that metaphor before, I don’t believe it makes very much sense. Reading a web page and reading a book are quite different exercises. Typically I will start reading a page and any links that interest me on that page get opened in a new tab. I try and avoid using multiple windows at all because it just becomes an unmanageable clutter of windows and tabs. The pages aren’t arranged heirarchically anyway (beyond my interpretation of the link structure), so windows and sub-windows (tabs) don’t really make a lot of sense as a metaphor. It’s just easier to have one window that does all your browsing, in my opinion.
I do like spatial nautilus, it reminds me a lot of my Amiga. I’m not sure that liking spatial file management means I dislike browser-style file management. The tree view might be a pain in some respects, but if you know your heirarchy well it does seem to be a much quicker way of getting to something fast.
I guess my rambling is leading to the point that sticking too rabidly to paradigms and metaphors an HCI professor says are good is no way to make interfaces. imo it doesn’t matter if you do something differently in a computer to the real world, so long as you are allowing the user to do it efficiently, consistently and wherever possible, intuitively (by that I mean it should be obvious what to do, not it should behave like it does somewhere else, be it another PC or the real world).
I have no strong feelings over the new spatial mode or the older mode. I can use both without too much problem. I think the thing that I object to is the taking away control from the user. Just because a load of usability studies say most people are more productive using this approach does not mean that a sizeable minority are more productive using another approach.
As such it should be made exceptionally easy for the user to choose the way he/she wants to work.
One of the things I like about KDE it is exceptionally configurable (easily) and allows you to setup your environment to suit you as an individual, not ignoring you if you don’t fit into the results of focus groups and studies.
No, the Taskbar is VERY, VERY EFFICIENT. Tabs are a UI enhancement, they Compliment the taskbar.
MY preferred paradigm goes something like this. I open an application. All the documents I work with are managed in that space. I typically can have about 7 applications open at one time. Individual documents within an application reside inside that application. Maybe if I worked on a very high resolution monitor I would not maximise windows, but I use a 1024×768 notebook. Now if I use Office I can’t do that, but it is slows me down. I much prefer using MDI applications, than Office ones.
Anyone you can use Windows/taskbar/tabs in complementary ways depending on the need/situation. There is no one way. I use the filemanager in different ways depending on what I am trying to do.
Andrew.
P.S. I don’t even think people think of files/filemanagers as physical folders and file cabinets anymore. Maybe in the 80’s when computers were new.
Oh one more thing, if you can tell me a method of being more productive, not consistent with your paradigm, I would appreciate it.
I agree. They also try and choose sensible defaults.
> it is just bad file organisation coupled with a bunch
> of old bad habits […] attacks on the spatial browser
> try to stop the innovation
Every time I read something like this I wonder:
should it be ‘technology for the people’ or rather
‘people for the innovation’?
Just to open a slightly different box of unknown, but possibly unpleasant content:
I suspect you, like me, would see it as a big improvement if Gimp went MDI?
And I use a command line to manage my files, TYWM.
I recently installed FC2 and I have to say I am one of those people who don’t like spatial browsing.
I think the only place I find spatial nautilus useful is if I create the following shortcuts:
My Computer
My Docs
My Music
My Videos
But then I still have to browse sub folders if I have categorised my music and video collection. So this makes spatial useless to me again.
The only useful one may be the My Computer, because I plug in a USB disk or digital camera I expect them to be mounted automatically and icons placed in My Computer.
Have GNOME developers created a help file to go with this, that would also give me an indication on what it is used for.
I am really finding it difficult to figure out how I could use Spatial Nautilus in my day to day usage.
Androo (IP: —.107.193.93.charter-stl.com) wrote:
To me, the most comfortable form of file management is the single-window filemanager and wonderful “copy/move by context menu” that Tracker in BeOS provides. I can double-click my volume on the desktop to open a new window … navigate to the folder I desire, and do all my file management from within that one window with minimal clicking and fuss.
To each his own, I guess.
With Tracker you don’t even need to open a new window and then navigate to the desired folder by multiple double-clicks. Just right click the volume on the desktop and use the spring-loaded menu to open the right folder directly.
My opinion is that Tracker – or even better; OpenTracker – is the most usable of the file managers out there. Duplicate that interface and you will have the ultimate tool to manage your files. But hey, that’s just me.
hm, seems like i forgot to put my name on my post, sorry about that
I am with you, Bogo. I think, actually, if Naut. implemented the drill-down folders (and actions) in a context menu, it would nearly perfect!
But I also think that they should not abandon the single-window mode of file browsing, afterall, OpenTracker offers that as well. (Not saying that YOU said that, btw).
Mike
Yes, I would. I would like to hear what the benefits of the existing design are, or if it is just easier to code.
But I think that if you are going to be working in more than one application or with multiple documents the current setup is note very productive. Unless of course you have a very large screen(maybe dual) and only work in one application.
The most anoying aspect of the Spatial Nautilus for me is that you have to close all that windows one by one after you have reached the desired folder.
This is, yet again, an engineer speaking and trumpeting theory over usefulness. I have no problem with the spatial browser, but I do have a problem with forcing it on everyone because it’s theoretically ‘correct’.
I’m no fan of M$, in fact, my main machine is a Mac. So I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had my share of high horse ui eliteism (in Apple’s case tho, it’s usually correct). I think it’s fine to say this is Nautilus and its default display mode is spatial. But at least provide us with a way to turn it off – for now or maybe forever.
Some will definitely see spatial as their way to go, others, esp. Windoze users, probably not. But by forcing someone into something because of ideological ideas is just as bad as any similar behavior by M$. Gnome should not be just an exercise in freedom, but also in usefulness as well as CHOICE. Fortunately there are little projects out there that see the relevance in choice and provide it – I’m thinking of gTweakUI in particular.
So fellow developers and engineers, continue your great job in providing better and better tools, but for god’s sake, give the end users a choice as well. Otherwise, your dry theory is going to turn away more than it brings in.
I believe you can close all parent windows with a button and/or combination of keystrokeand and mouse.
But if you are closing them anyway, what was the point of spatial again?
First off, as far as I can tell, this is not an innovation. The pre-osx mac finder behaved like this, as did (to some extent) the windows 95 explorer. However, both file managers gave up this paradigm (at least as the default) some time ago. While I do not know their reasoning, I’d guess it has something to do with the increasing complexity of the average computer’s filesystem–having a separate window for each folder became impracticable, as one often had to dig four or five levels into the heirarchy to find what one was looking for. Do this two or three times, and you have fifteen separate, identical looking windows open on your desktop–which is annoying, troublesome, and confusing. The approach has thus broken down at this point, as it is causing the reactions it was designed to prevent.
This is even *more* of a problem on Linux than it is on a mac or a windows box, because Linux makes such extensive use of the filesystem hierarchy. c:program files becomes /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/share, /bin, /lib, /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, even /etc… By the time you’re done searching for something, you have so many windows open that it’s just about impossible to proceed without closing *all* of them.
In my opinion, the desktop metaphor hasn’t really worked perfectly since the days of the mac plus, simply because we demand much more of these machines than we used to. While “exploring” a filesystem does feel a bit kludgy and is certainly more difficult to explain to new users, it is, at least currently, the best we’ve got. I think, however, that perhaps a good compromise would be using a spatial file manager for the desktop, home dir and removeable media only. Since what I’m doing when I use the filesystem outside of home directory is quite different from what I’m doing inside my home dir (I’m generally doing some sort of configuration–installing/removing programs, futzing with /etc…) and one has to be root to do futz with the root filesystem *anyway*, it might make sense to have this separate browser baserather thanyou generally have to be root to do this *anyway*, it might make sense to have a separate tool for this–a browser based file manager, perhaps called something like “system editor”, stored in the gnome control panel (or whatever it’s called).
Just my $0.02
Okay, maybe the taskbar has its uses (I use the window-switch menu as it takes less space and doesn’t get cluttered when more windows are open). But still I think there should be one way of handling windows within a single application. What is the advantage of having some applications using tabs, some using MDI and some using neither?
I think MDI is crap. It is very confusing for newbies, and as a Power User you are locked into the MDI parent window.
Tabs are also crap, as the taskbar doesn’t know about them. Suppose you have two tabbed Mozilla windows:
– One has the OpenBSD-Sparc64 review of osnews active. Other tabs are some ebay auctions for them, and a Just the Facts PDF
– One has the mainpage of OSNews active, other tabs being slashdot, kuro5hin and CNN.
Suppose both windows are minimized. Now when you look at the task bar, both buttons are called “OSNews.com – Exploring the Future of Computing”, thus providing no clue which window is which. If you want to look at one of the eBay auctions, you only have a 50% chance of opening the right window.
And this is why I think the current taskbar approach isn’t really that efficient.
Now how about a completely different approach? Now that OS’es get more and more task-based, why not make the window handling task-based too? In that way, you can put those eBay auctions, the OSNews review, the Just-the-Facts PDF and the price-comparison spreadsheet right into one single task. Now make 1) a bar for switching between tasks, 2) a bar for switching windows (or tabs or whatever) within a task and 3) automatically save these groups to disk, and you have 1) a solution to the window clutter problem and 2) a replacement for favourites/bookmarks that is not tied to webpages.
Btw. another serious disadvantage of tabs is that you can’t use drag-and-drop between them.
Amazingly, the Gnome endeaver (and especially this author) manage to do just enough theorizing and abstracting to result in strange and unintuitive interfaces, but not enough to see the folly of their ways.
For example, if you want to be spacial for context, then trees or tabs are far better than windows, for the simple reason that they are designed to be viewed and comprehended even when a lot of them have been opened! Windows are not designed for this at all, which is why they suck at it and result mostly in clutter and frustration.
It’s pretty sad to read a lesson on abstraction from a guy who apparently never considered that a tab in a browser in a taskbar on a screen is highly spacially organized (principle of containment – very intuitive and usable). This guy can’t imagine that I may not have a problem distinguishing my websites amongst my tabs. He hasn’t considered that I may view the web in pages, not sites, and that I hardly care about site divisions at all. He hasn’t considered that I may just need less graphical junk than he to keep track of what I’m doing and what happens next.
I like the MS Intellipoint software as a metaphore for user interface design: Your mouse has 8 buttons. Tell them each what to do in each application. Learn your own system and then interface with your computer at the speed of light. Amazing that MS is less arogrant in this sense than the Gnome project.
Scratching my ass is also a bad habit, but I’m not going to stop doing it just because some yahoo says it’s a bad habit. Choice is good, and if I can’t choose whether my directories open in a new window then I’ll choose a different file manager.
Could work. Just need to see how the theory / idea pans out when it gets implemented, hopefully well implemented.
I don’t have a problem wondering what is open in the browser, because I can generally remember what I have open, and if I can’t I at least know it is a web page, so I open the web page app.
I don’t have the same MDI problems. All apps become virtual platforms, but ones in which objects can be shared. Generally just by dragging and dropping or copying and pasting. In Windows I don’t like the task based approach, because I normally know what I am doing and which apps do it. I like deciding for myself which app will get the job done. I don’t want the computer to think too much for me. Others may benefit from a task based approach though. I mean I am sure it has a place. Establishing a network connection is an example, there are others.
Okay, I’m going to completely disagree with this inflamatory piece and the troll who wrote it.
My computer is not a filing cabinet, there’s nothing to suggest that it should operate like a filing cabinet or a book or a typewriter. Maybe it’s time to start throwing out these “real-world” metaphors before they start holding back interface design (maybe they are already).
The spatial metaphor actually tries to hide the real structure of the filesystem from the user by never presenting the true filesystem hierarchy to them. If users think of their hard drive as a collection of discrete ‘filing cabinets’ it can be much harder for them to understand the true structure of their filesystem when it comes time to perform lower level tasks like backups and data recovery.
All spatial file managers that I have seen have a problem whereby if you are trying to manage files nested a couple of directories deep the screen gets strewn with windows and managing the windows becomes more of a problem than managing the files at hand, also it becomes difficult to determine the parent folder once it has disappeared into the clutter of windows behind the one you just opened. It’s not an acceptable work-around to say “just don’t make deeply nested directories” on a UNIX system when your home directory is usually already nested at least two levels deep.
Users don’t generally need to know about full paths, but you can be damn sure they won’t thank you when they need to copy their files off a defunct computer and can’t find them because the system never really told them where they were. Think about the “My Documents” folder in Windows NT/XP/2K for an example of why hiding the true path is bad.
My preferred method of navigation is the column view from NeXTStep/OpenStep/OS X because it is very easy and intuitive to navigate with keys, preserves child-parent relationships and is compact, structured and honest in the way it presents information about the filesystem to the user.
Why on earth should this be replaced with something which lies to the user about how deeply nested in the directory structure of the hard drive it already is, are most users really that babyish that they can’t handle that much information? I don’t think so, maybe you do.
In my opinion, Spatial Nautilus is a symbol of degeneration — it was long since window managers removed their spatial style of managing files.
Why? The human just doesn’t work the way files and folders work in their lifes. The file and folder desktop management theory does not stand as humans view things by focusing — if we wanted a file we would look for it, and we wouldn’t want to make the desktop messy.
If we were to use a drawer, we would open the drawer and look at a pile of folders. when we found the specific folder, the brain automatically shuns out the other folders — they merely take up the blank spaces that we don’t want.
This tells me that people look that things by the usage of attention, and not spatial. The specific folder would take up all our attention span. In this way, its easy to note that we would rather the unimportant folders disappear…
Moreover, if one stumble across something interesting, he could just open it as a new window — there is no use for spatial windowing except that! Its been included in windows for so long that I have forgotten about its existance!
In all, you could just get a hint from users — if users don’t want it and could give so many reasons, that isn’t the time to implement anything you want to. BTW, spatial windowing isn’t ANY INNOVATION — IT WAS HELL!
That was well put.
“Tabs are also crap, as the taskbar doesn’t know about them. Suppose you have two tabbed Mozilla windows:
– One has the OpenBSD-Sparc64 review of osnews active. Other tabs are some ebay auctions for them, and a Just the Facts PDF
– One has the mainpage of OSNews active, other tabs being slashdot, kuro5hin and CNN.
Suppose both windows are minimized. Now when you look at the task bar, both buttons are called “OSNews.com – Exploring the Future of Computing”, thus providing no clue which window is which. If you want to look at one of the eBay auctions, you only have a 50% chance of opening the right window.
And this is why I think the current taskbar approach isn’t really that efficient.”
Think of it as a tree. The taskbar is a node. Creating two nodes beneath it that are both named “Mozilla” and that each have half of what you want would be stupid. You either need to (a) open each web page in a separate window or (b) all in the same window. You can obviously already do (a) just by opening more instances of the browser. Tabs allow you to opt for (b). If you care what site a couple of related links are from, that is another level on this abstract tree. The browser could, assuming enough people cared, graphically group pages by site. It could use meta-tabs, or graphical divisions between sets of tabs, or any of a jillion graphical methods to make that visual distinction.
Whether the browser or the OS should do is not an interface question at all, of course. It’s just a programming question. And Gnome/KDE by default even add another level to the tree by having multiple desktops. So in this case you could have your two different Mozilla “tasks” on different desktops. One for work and one for your lunch break, or whatever. Abstract though it may be, the tree would be like:
Desktop 1
-> ICQ
-> Mozilla
-> OSNews
-> Slashdot
-> Article 1
-> Article 2
-> Ebay
-> Quicken
Desktop 2
-> Mozilla
-> Company intranet home page
-> Work-related research site
-> Company application
I think most people can keep track and “see” these relationships in their head without a lot of visual fanfare. And if not, then I don’t see why I should have to use their handicapped interface that wastes space on things I don’t personally need.
Oops. How about this:
Desktop 1
-> ICQ
-> Mozilla
-> OSNews
-> Slashdot
-> Article 1
-> Article 2
-> Ebay
-> Quicken
Desktop 2
-> Mozilla
-> Company intranet home page
-> Work-related research site
-> Company application
gah. okay, i’ll stop trying now. most of you get the point…
spatial nautilus is not supossed to be for managing files outside of /home it is not an administors tool. It is very efficient when browsing folders filled with user saved documents or media.
Now for example, the organisation of files taken with a digital camera.
With spatial: Pictures are downloaded in to a directory, unorganised. The user in question then makes two directories Bob’s birthday and Wendy’s wedding. Now all three aforementioned directories are open apon the users desktop. Each photo can be examined in turn and placed in the required directory. This manner of doing things is very natural compared to the individual highlighting, cutting, navigating and pasting which is necessary in the browser paradigm.
on an unrelated note, to an unseasoned computer user the taskbar is unfathomable, the items on the taskbar bear no resemblance to the programs when maximised.
What is the real cause of all these attacks on the spatial Nautilius? In my opinion, it is just bad file organisation coupled with a bunch of old bad habits.
Translated: users are morons.
one can click one field in the gconf configuration editor and turn Nautilitus into “classical” non-spatial file browser. Don’t know how to use gconf? Then you shouldn’t change the way Nautilitus works, I presume.
Translation: morons should not complain.
What’s worst, attacks on the spatial browser try to stop the innovation.
Translation: developers know better what users want. Get over it.
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Speaking about innovation: Mr. Bob was an innovation. Yes, it was- but not the one users liked. In fact, users hated it.
So, where is Mr. Bob how? Hello? What? He is spending all his time in undisclosed location at MS campus, where he belongs!
That’s it, folks: does not matter how innovative is your innovation, if users don’t like it: shut up and take your innovation back. End users are always right, even when they are wrong!
What, can’t swallow your pride and surprised that for your free hard work people can’t even thank you properly, but prefer to complain instead?
Well, as Russian proverb says “cheap but crappy, pricey but lovely.” Don’t become proof of it.:)
Funny article.
I think conceptually spatial is the way to go with a file browser, but practically it’s not. In the real world and in every day use situations the browser-like file manager is more practical and efficient for the majority of people. I think this has been the cause of so much of the outcry against spatial Nautilus. The debate seems to be split into two camps. Those that believe they know which is the right way to design a user interface and those who know how they feel when they use an interface. I think a truly great UI designer trusts her intuition more than what is popular opinion about what is the so-called technically right thing to do. It seems the decision to make spatial Nautilus the default was made by people who are more intellectual than intuitive. While there’s nothing wrong with being intellectual, I think a larger dose of inuition in this situation would never have yielded the decision to make the spatial mode default. I think eventually they will admit they were wrong and change it back.
I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them…
I hope the spatial guys don’t rip off the pages of the newspaper and spread it all over the table…
Seriously now, the problem with spatial navigation (which I tried to like but at the end turned off) was the way it was implemented: if the Gnome guys implemented it but left it turned off by default (with a big button “open directories in new windows” or whatever available), no one would be complaining. Choice is great. Push it down the throat of people is not.
“Sometimes they even abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening multiple pages – not subpages of the same web site! – in multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them…”
I do — but I simulate on screen what I do in meatspace — I stack my reading, and flip rapidly back and forth using some rather tab-like bookmarks. It’s efficient when dealing with, say, my 700-page telecom contract.
Gnome have made the mistake of forcing their spatial browser on their users, there may be good arguments in favor of spatial but then there are also arguments in favor of browsing. I don’t believe one is greatly superiour to the other, it very much seems to depend on the person.
Spatial isn’t the oldest method, browsing was in use for a long time – even before GUIs were invented. Does your terminal open a new window everytime you change to a new directory?
It’s unfortunate but GUI developers in the opensource world do not seem very open to critisim. GIMP and Gnome have both recently been subject to critisim but all the response I’ve seen is the user has not done their research or is dumb, noone seems to recognise that the user might actually have a valid point. This article is a case in point, there is nothing wrong with a robust defence but this says spatial is the one true way and if you don’t like it you are in the wrong.
People should get it by now, there is no one true way, especially where useability is concerned.
The author seems to be overly obsessed with the idea of finding the correct metaphor.
I think the best answer to this article would be a link to Alan Cooper’s article, written in 1995:
http://www.cooper.com/articles/art_myth_of_metaphor.htm
Excerpt from the article:
“But by searching for that magic metaphor you will be making one of the biggest mistakes in user interface design. Searching for that guiding metaphor is like searching for the correct steam engine to power your airplane, or searching for a good dinosaur on which to ride to work.”
Most people writing here seem to think that “spatial” simply means “open a new window for each folder opened”. As a result, most people seem annoyed by it. This is unfortunate, as that is NOT what spatial means. Please read the article at Ars for a better explanation:
http://arstechnica.com/paedia/f/finder/finder-2.html
If i had to do a short summary, a spatial file browser:
Has a single root (desktop, computer, whatever).
Always shows the same item in the same way it was the last time you saw it – windows remember their position and how the user displayed and organized their contents.
Will only show one instance of an item at a time, so the user never wonders about whether two of their windows are open to the same folder.
None of these are in themselves bad (and many would argue that they’re good), but they can be implemented poorly. Please try to separate the arguments over implementation from the arguments about spatial representations.
JT
I agree completely with all who say spatial isn’t at all that good. but I also agree in that the old way wasn’t really good either.
So how do we make things more efficient?
I’ve seen two project who might take care of this, one who went one step further and assigned actions, items and times in different rows and then let you chose one object, autmatically filtering away all invalid options.
(you could therefor either chose a image, and get a list of what to do with the image, or you could say what you want to do, and it would list all that you could do it with.)
The other solution (which I’d love to see) is reiserfs as it states in their white papers.
with reiserfs in the state it’s supposed to be, you would not be in need of a file browser/manager, and most additional structure to your data would be meaningless.
all you would need was to think in associations.
think: christmas chimney reindeer man.
and at your disposal, all documents or whatever containing this should be shown (just as google, but with a good, sub-searchable design
I’ve seen all the articles about why using the spatial interface is better. They all bend over backwards trying to convince us why the majority of people who prefer using a browser-like interface are wrong, that the spatial way is superior. Did you ever stop to think that if you have to put that much effort explaining why something is better, maybe it’s not? This is just another insulting example of the tunnel vision some really talented developers get that prevent them from making some really cool software. Come down off your high horse. If people like it and are comfortable with it, why change it? Quit patronizing us with your holier than thou attitudes!
Your idea might also work, indeed, but at one point it is significally different from mine.
I like to group things into tasks. In each browser window, I want to see those websites that are about the same subject. Site doesn’t matter. And my idea is to extend this approach to other applications as well, thus being able to group the following things into one tabbed window:
– A review on OSNews of OpenBSD on the Ultra 5
– Some eBay auctions for Sun Ultra workstations
– An OpenOffice spreadsheet for calculating the price/performance ratio of the eBay auctions
– Acrobat Reader showing the Just the Facts of some Sun Ultra workstation.
As these things include three applications, it can not be implemented at the application level, but only at the OS (or DE) level.
Your approach doesn’t focus on a certain task, but on applications. In that sense, your idea is only a slight reorganisations of the menus that my Macintosh SE/30 (System/MultiFinder 6.0.3) already has: an application menu for switching applications, and a View menu for switching between documents within an application.
My system has one little disadvantage: the OS should provide a way for saving tasks to disk and restoring them (just like bookmarking the entire tabset in Mozilla), as they aren’t generated dynamically.
To make this post at least a little bit on-topic: such a system would most likely imply a browser-like file manager, or could a spatial one also be fitted in?
Btw. I would welcome a hierarchical view of comments 😉
Could be implemented as Konqueror + read-write KParts + save tabs.
The single best, as in b-e-s-t, file management tool I have ever used is Lotus Magellan. Magellan, a DOS product disappeared around 1991, took what became the familiar Norton Commander interface a few steps better: It would index all or part of your drive (file content, not just filenames) and allow you to query that index using a simple but useful syntax; it was able to display most of the word processing/spreadsheet/graphic formats of that time; the usual batch of archiving ability; a builtin text editor so you could edit files in place; a thick manual and a nifty macro capability. And it was fast.
An updated equivalent for Linux, with the capability to handle the web and today’s media formats, would be fantastic.
(No, Konqueror is nothing like it. Not even close.)
“Windows used to have this option “Open each folder in new window” since long, and I remember that the Amiga Workbench used to do “spatial” browsing in folders, too.”
That is still the default if you use the Workbench program for file management. Many users prefer a 2-column file manager such as DOpus 4 (similar to Total Commander for Windows). IMO this is much more efficient, although it has the disadvantage of taking a bit longer to learn.
It is a bit puzzling to see this old method touted as a “new thing”.
I did install gnome 2.6 and sat in it for a month. I tried to use gconf a little, but all I got out from it (it’s help files and other things telling me what gconf is and why I should use it) said the same: do not use gconf to change settings, use the applicaitons themself to do that!
now, I still don’t get it.
why don’t gnome just take the wonderful idea of windows/kde or whatever witha control panel for settings, and an application section there-in which i _designed_ to be used, and to hold all necessary documentation to be userfriendly?
I went straight back to kde after this month of frustration. Nothing disturbs me more in the computer world than tools implying their will upon me, when it was I who had a will to do something.
(let machines work for the people, not against them)
“I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them…”
If you knew me, you would be adding my name to your list of `few people’. And your analogy regarding `desk of drawers’ and `newspapers’ is pathetic.
I guess the reason it’s called `spatial’ is because it uses all the space on ones desktop.
Hmm, being a long time KDE user I have tried Gnome 2.6 since it has entered Debian Unstable, and I have been using it ever since as my DE. Konqueror convinced me very much as a browser, but as a file manager, it just feels cluttered and overloaded. So finally I did all my file management using the command line.
I have never been a friend of tree widgets for file browsing anyway. They require very accurate mouse movements and the nodes in the tree constantly change their positions on the screen or move out of the viewable area when expanding and collapsing. In addition, browser-based file managers use more screen space due to the toolbar (back and forth buttons etc), address list and the file system tree, things that are completely unnecessary when you just work on a single folder, something which bothers me at 1024×768. And drag-and-drop is therefore just a PITA.
I agree that for deeply nested file systems such as a typical Unix filesystem, spatial file managers are not the preferable way to go; but neither are browser-based file managers – for poweruser system administration, I am using the command line anyway.
But in order to manage my personal documents, projects etc, I do like very much the spatial mode! In fact, spatial nautilus was the very reason for me to switch to gnome, in addition to the environment’s general simplicity and clarity of design. KDE just does not have ANY theme which is aesthetically pleasing, and there are just too much little buttons and icons you never use in your life.
I think this article brings up a lot of good points. It makes sence too that new users would find a spatial interface a little easier to learn regarless if its less efficient or not. So offering an option that is on by default is probably a good idea.
In my oppnion however I don’t like having these parent windows open. To me the whole folder/file analogy is annoying. I just want to get the file(s) that I’m looking for. The only concern I have with the path or the method of reaching these files is that I want it to be as efficient as possible and well organized. This is one reason why WinFS sounds so attractive to many people. As for spacial interfaces, I can definitely see how information about the view and icons and stuff should be saved for each folder however size of the window and keeping windows open isn’t that important to me. The reason is that me and many users work with their windows maximized almost all of the time in order to get the largest possible view of their file system. It does make sense to me to have a window that is small and just barely fits the files into it withough scrolling and everytime you add or remove files from that folder you have to resize that window. To me I’d rather just maximize it and never have to worry about resizing. Thats where tabs, and trees come in handy.
*sigh*
93 posts complaining about spatial *again!*.
Sometimes I wonder if it was even worth doing those usability studies? What happens when they do another change? If anyone wonders why the UI metaphor hasn’t advanced much beyound the Early Macs? Now you know.
Anyway, I think that spatial will come into it’s own, when married to an underlying database. Which if memory serves is being worked on.
I do like spatial Nautilus (although I do think this article makes a bad case for it). However, I do understand what one comment writer said–that this feature has been “force fed” to people. It’s true that the Gnome developers should have included a dialog to switch off spatial mode entirely before Gnome 2.6 was released, but now it’s done so who cares?
Spatial nautilus is extremely useful if you know how to organize your files and folders and want to have control over how your desktop represents them. As a result, it’s _great_ for managing my home directory. But what if I want to browse /usr/share/? That becomes a kludge with spatial mode. That’s why it’d be great if I could hit a hotkey and the spatial window would transform to browser mode (like the functionality top-right button in OS X finder). Is this already there?
Look at all this time wasted on one issue that was solved 10 years ago by Windows and Mac. Spatial doesn’t work with deep hierarchies – which is what most users have today – at the office, every network drive is 5-6 folders deep, at least. A tree makes it easy to navigate and drag and drop files between folders.
This is ridiculous. We worry about trivia and don’t fix the real problems of Linux: 2 incompatible desktop environments, so developers don’t have one API to shoot at (like Windows, like Mac). Incredibly difficult installation issues – Petrely was complaining about this back in ’99! and still no answer for the COMMON user. And this ties in to the differences between distros – a total mess.
I remember The Kompany explaining how they had to build their apps to run on different distros, and what a mess! I think they finally got fed up.
You can talk all you want about choice, but developers don’t want choice of API’s on something as basic as a desktop environment, and neither do the users. The fragmenting of the Linux desktop, it’s API’s, and the incompaitible distros are not a benefit, but a noose around Linux, and any other talk about things like Spatial before fixing these more important things is just mental masturbation.
The only hope for the Open Source desktop looks like Syllable, or OpenBeos.