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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: RMB - once again
From:       William Leese <yatsu () wanadoo ! nl>
Date:       2003-08-09 13:47:34
[Download RAW message or body]

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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> 
> On Friday 08 August 2003 03:24, Matthew Bonyak wrote:
> 
>>On Friday, Aug 8, 2003, at 16:33 America/New_York, William Leese wrote:
>>
>>>I'm wondering if most users really use preview. In what way does
>>>'Preview'
>>>differ from opening the file in an application? All it does is open
>>>the file
>>>in a 'lite' application.

[snip]

> previews are highly useful for many, and are primarily an issue due to no 
> feedback that it's a preview and how to get to edit mode. there are solutions 
> that "just" need to be coded... and they will be, one day, i promise...

Somekind of generic "File" -> "Edit"? Using somekind of toolbar button 
seems too complicated. Instead get the user to get the hang of e.g. 
clicking an image in konqueror to have it displayed in the right pane, 
then going to "File" -> "Edit" to open it in a new window with the File 
Types default editor. This is a quick win.

I'm not saying Previewing files isn't wanted. I'm only concerned about 
the many 'labels' the simple action of opening a file in an application 
with an optional parameter currently have.

The purpose of the multiple labels is to make it easy for the user to 
map his/her needs to a menu item ("I want to rotate this image" - 
RMB->Action->Rotate X degrees). But if this makes the RMB menu hard to 
scan quickly due to the many items it adds then you're losing the 
benefit of this 'mind to menu mapping'. OTOH, I'm pretty satisfied with 
the size of the menu at the moment, after we get rid of the "Open in New 
Tab", "Open in New Window" and "Open in Background Tab" when navigating 
the filesystem.

But back to the point: Preview is one entry too many, because it's 
functionality is far too similar to what someone would find in Open With X.

In my ideal world (for file browsing) we'd have:

View*
Edit
Other Action..**
--------------
Cut
Copy
Paste
Rename
Delete
--------------
Copy To
Move To
--------------
Properties***


* Based on File Type, this might also be "Play"
** Equivalent of "Open With.." and Actions? Probably a bad idea. 
Ofcourse, as Waldo suggested "Edit File Type.." would be integrated 
somehow in this item.
*** Wouldn't something like "<File> Details" be more appropriate, where 
<File> is replaced by the MIME Type description? This would be more 
practical if we could display some kind of simplified MIME Type 
description such as "Audio", "Video", "Spreadsheet", "Image", etc..

Just some ideas.

- wvl

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