From kde-usability Tue Aug 09 22:07:44 2005 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?S=E9bastien_Lao=FBt?= Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 22:07:44 +0000 To: kde-usability Subject: Re: "Documents" path usability issues. Message-Id: <200508100007.45250.slaout () linux62 ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-usability&m=112362573310557 Yes, it is used to store all files, instead of only office documents. At least it was my own perception of the ~/Documents folder when I first seen it, because the home folder is for all user produced files by nature, so why do we need to keep it empty and put everything down in another hierarchy level! Remember that all configuration files should go in ~/.* and now that Evolution and KMail respect this rule, the home folder is really free for user-produced files (except that f*****g ~/tmp folder that should be hidden too). Yes, this is a result of the misinterpretation of that folder by programmers. But not only! If only office documents went to ~/Documents, all other applications creating images, UML diagrams, web sites... would go to ~. And instead of filling ~/Documents, ~/Documents would have a few number of files and ~/ will be full of every other files. Return to the start case. But instead of rename "Documents" to "Files" or even to "Home Bis"... I think the solution would be to create folders for every major categories: * Desktop * Downloads * Images * Musics * Office * Sites * Videos The Windows way? Yes, but DON'T CRY TOO EARLY! ;) I think the Windows way of "My *" is sort of good but a bad implementation: * Because of the "My" prefix * Because of the fixed nature: every users don't need the same folder-set * Because of the applications forcing theire own folders. Think to Acrobat Reader that will always create a "My Library" folder when you start it, even if it's always empty. First up, there is this "My" prefix everywhere, which make using keyboard navigation useless. With the proposed folders above, user only have to open the Home folder and press [M] and [Enter] keys to view his music, etc... Thanksfuly, Microsoft understood that and Windows Vista will not prepend "My" to every folder! Second, the folders-set should not be fix! We should define the most typical use case of the computer and have a list of them in KDE. But do NOT create them on the hard drive! Each folders should have a different icon. Of course it should be a folder_* icon: user need to know it's a folder, only a little overlay emblem would be added to it. When to create them? That's the bad point of the idea. I don't know when :) But nowaday programs can ask for the standard "Documents" folder path, right? We then should extend the API so a new function is created and instead the app ask for "What is the user folder for images?", "... for peer-to-peer downloaded files?"... The function return the folder, even if it doesn't exists, the FileSave dialog is openned in this folder (but remember the folder doesn't exists on the hard drive), if the user save the file in that folder, the folder is first created. That's quite magic... This has to be refined. Or less dark-magic-virtual-things: the folder can be created before to oen the FileSave dialog, with a semi-transparent look (like cutted files in Konqueror, but not grayscale transformed), and if the user save the file in that folder, that's good. If she don't save the file in that folder, well forget it and delete it from the disk. Or perhapse every folders could exist by default but be hidden as soon as there is nothing in theme. And only shown in the save dialog, the "Copy/Move to" menu... Third, of course we can't forsee every possible file types. Applications should be able to add theire types in a plugin-fashion. Apolon already do that: it create an ~/Apolon folder with the icon "folder_apolon" (so, it's OK with point 2). That's not perfect: it is using the Windows way: that folder is forced to the user, no matter if he would prefer to put the files in his ~/Downloads folder or not... The first time Apolon run, it should ask which folder to use: by default the Apolon one, but as it know the meaning of ~/Downloads, it can propose that as a second proposition, and ~/ as a third one, etc... This is also true for Kopete: received files can be very strange (a photo of a contact's journey, a draft of the document/HTML page/... she is working on...). Kopete should offer a ~/Received Files folder by default, folowed by ~/Images if it's an image, etc... How? Kopete have a plugin that add the entry: * id: receiveds * Folder: ~/Received Files * Folder[fr]: ~/Fichiers reçu * Icon: folder_received * MIMETypes: */* to the KStandardFolders API, and also know that by default, KDE comes with this: * id: images * Folder: ~/Images * Folder[fr]: ~/Images * Icon: folder_images * MIMETypes: image/*;video/mng So Kopete have just to do so: firstChoice = KStandardFolders("receiveds"); secondChoice = KStandardFolders("images"); ... I searched the "Perfect Hierarchy" over ages. And now, my home folder contains only folders. It contains 13 folders: * Archives: the files I worked before, and now will never work on them again but keep them for remembering reason (ie. school/university files) * Desktop: the desktop, I tend to put a lot of things on it, but because I know I will work on them soon, so the access is fast * Downloads: of course, downloaded programs * Game Cube: the solutions of the games :-) * Images: my photos and images * Music: my music * Programation: each KDevelop project have a folder inside it * References: various programming references * Shorcuts: shortcuts to Windows "My Documents", other data partition or pen * Sites: This is public_html. I renamed it in a more user friendly way * Various Files: All things I don't know where to put and that I will perhapse never use again * Videos: videos! * tmp: If anyone know how to remove that intrus... Of course, this is very personal. Just use case examples AND to show that hierarchy is a very personal thing. I searhed for years before to find that one. "My *" on Windows is good because it help users organize themselves with that magical hierarchy, but it must be extended. My mother and sister have gained the reflex to put theire camera photos in "My pictures". Everything else in "My documents". It show one thing two times: * That's a good thing the "My pictures" was here so they auto-organized theire work without computer knowledges. * Everything else is not organized. It could be if the computer comes with other standard folders. We can find tons of other folders: * Saved Pages: Saved website HTML pages/archives, or sniffed sites * Torrents: for people who host a lot of BitTorrent files I think it should be made easy for everyone to make theire OWN hierarchy. And perhapse Tenor could remove the need of a hierarchy (even if I wonder how programers or webdesigners will do without it for theire big projects). But at least I can say it's bad to always use the keyboard to search every files. So, having the home folder to be an ENTRY POINT where the user is presented such discussed mini-hierarchy (13 folders is a small enouth number, and when entering one folder, the choice is already less) is good. This hierarchy could even be virtual folders in KDE4... or whatever Tenor will allow... _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability