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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: kde's future
From:       Henry Stanaland <henryst () MIT ! EDU>
Date:       2001-01-09 18:55:02
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> 
> What I see a lot more is people makeing a mistake in the save dialog and they
> don't understand why things happened. It is hard to explain that you can
> do file-administration in a _SAVE_ dialog.
> Next thing people do is start word, save a file and start doing file
> management in that dialog. This is no joke. People actually do that!!
> 
> People tend to use what they know, so keep it simple, keep it predictable!!
> 
> Again, keep one tool for a task, and make that tool powerful.
> 


(Warning: This e-mail isn't supposed to be rude or anything, I am just
bad at writing)

It is not hard to understand that you can do File Administration in a
file-dialog,
after-all, it is a FILE-dialog.  And renaming files goes hand-in-hand
with saving(when that 
file has the name you want for example).  Deleting files go hand-in-hand
with deleting.
Of all things, even "Civilizations: Call to Power"'s SAVE dialog, has
the one all mighty button:
"DELETE"! (but you can rename too).

Expanding on Gaute's argument of "more configurable," there is also the
idea that
YOU should not decide that I should not be able to do something that I
WANT todo.  
In other words, if people want to use a File->Open dialog for whatever
reason, they 
should be allowed to.  I agree that many people use these for "system
administration"
(Never have I seen anyone open one of these dialogs for the sole reason
of administering 
anything unrelated to the current application).  But, these same people 
are scared to death of Window's Explorer.  Many people do not like to
"surf their file 
system."  If the File->Open dialog is simpler and makes them feel
comfortable, let them 
use it.

  I also use the file-dialog for deleting/renaming.  Even the
Gnome-dialog
offers only the following buttons: Rename, New Folder, Delete.  This is
my prime use 
of these:  I download 30 mp3z.  I open them in XMMS.  If I find an
incomplete song, 
I'll quickly delete it.  If a file doesn't follow my naming convention,
I'll quickly 
rename it.  Why does this work better than opening a file manager?  1. 
Because it's 
open anyway, it's super-quick.  2. I am in the correct folder already. 
Opening a fresh 
file manager would not land me in /opt/mp3z/Megadeth/ for example.

  As for the "One task, one tool" in Unix.  You know this is changing
right NOW.  Look at 
Konqueror:  WebBrowser/File Manager/Digital Camera viewer/MP3
ripper/etc/etc/etc/.  If anything
"One task, one tool" is hell because of the thousands of tasks we have
to do.

I beg of you.  Please keep all the functionality in the File Dialog by
default.

Thanks,
Henry Stanaland

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