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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: "Home" name confusing
From:       Iñaki <ibc2 () euskalnet ! net>
Date:       2006-10-11 17:58:15
Message-ID: 200610111958.15459.ibc2 () euskalnet ! net
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El Miércoles, 11 de Octubre de 2006 03:55, James Richard Tyrer escribió:
> Iñaki wrote:
> > Hi, I've realized that various friends of mine when starting in Kubuntu
> > they have a singular problem: they confuse the meaning of "Home".
> >
> > This is, I tell them by phone "save the file in your home" and they
> > intuitively try to save that file in /home instead of /home/user.
> >
> > I have a theory about the cause of this confusion:
> >
> > - In Windows this issue never occurs because the user never see:
> >   "C:\Document and settings\user\Documents\..."
> > The user always see:
> >   "My documents\..." (when saving or opening file, or when exploring him
> > documents).
>
> First you need to clearly understand that in KDE: "My Documents" is NOT
> "HOME".  KDE's equivalent to" "My Documents" is: "system:/documents".

Do you really imagine a newbie the first time he read: "system:/documents"?
"What are they? documents about the system? which system?"



> > - But in Linux when the user press "Home" icon he see:
> >   "/home/user/..."
>
> The URL for the Home icon is configurable.

A common user doesn't expect to have to configure the "home url".



> > in the navigation bar, so, what is "home"? the "home" directory? my
> > directory?...
>
> The Home directory is the root of the user's private directory tree just
> as it is on Windows -- it is a directory that has the name of the user's
> account name.  "My Documents" is a subdirectory of the directory "<user>".

I know, but I'm speaking about new people using KDE and Linux (or similar 
systems):

- Any user knows what a directory is.
- Any user can understand that "\" in Linux is "/".
- Any user can learn that there is not "C:", but "/" is the beggining of 
files.
- Any users knows by intuition that in ths url "/home/user", "home" is a 
directory.
- But any newbie can get confused when he read "home" and remember the "/home" 
directory instead of understand that "home" is refered to "/home/user".



> > In KDE there is a strange and useless kio called "home://" that is
> > exactly the same as "/home", why does it exist? it just maybe to add
> > confusion.
>
> Have no idea what it is for.

Neither me. I've seen no application using it.



> > A solution for this issue could be a kio: "myhome://" pointing
> > to "/home/user", so the user doesn't need to know the complex file system
> > of Linux.
>
> This wouldn't be a good idea.  Home can already be accessed through the:
> "system:/" directory.

I thing this is a worse idea. Tha user shouldn't read "system" word when 
trying to do normal things with him documents.


> I do note that: "documents:/" would be usefull.

I understand that nobody here like "my ***" because is the words used by 
Microsoft in "My documents", "My music", "My MSN Space...".
But "my" is more intuitive for any user.
What is "documents:/"? system documents? 



Regards.

-- 
Iñaki
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