Re: spatial finder

[Frederico Muñoz]

On 2004-06-16 11:09:07 +0100 Rogelio Serrano <rogelio@smsglobal.net> wrote:

> On 2004-06-16 17:58:04 +0800 Nicolas Roard <nicolas@roard.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Le 16 juin 04, à 10:48, Enrico Sersale a écrit :
>> 
>>> On 2004-06-16 05:44:34 +0300 Rogelio Serrano <rogelio@smsglobal.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Can we use the new gworkspace finder in spatial mode?
>>> 
>>> What's that???
>> 
>> my .02€:
>> 
>> Something that works great with few files and shallow directories, and 
>> badly with plenty of files and deep directories. Eg, it's not that good for 
>> today computer's use.
>> 
>> You just need to see the users response to the now by-default nautilus 
>> spatial mode.
>> 
>> Workspace UI is much better suited to Unix use, imho.
>> 
> 
> Im going to use berkeley db to store files or file paths and additional file 
> attributes in a flat namespace and use a spatial finder. Im going to hide 
> unix from the user.

Altough hiding the filesystem from the user helps the usability of a spatial 
finder it is not dependent on one... GWorkspace can already do the same using 
the same mechanisms that NeXTSTEP (and I suppose Mac OSX) used: hidden 
directories and a new namespace. I'm looking right now at my finder window and 
in the root I have /Local, /System, /Network, /User and /Volumes. Add to this 
the icons for directories (.dir.tiff) and the underlying filesystem is hidden 
from the user.

With this in mind I suppose that to make GWorkspace "spatial"  one would set 
the default view to iconic and open a new dir in each clicked icon (and make 
sure that the new window remebers its atributes). I'm with Nicolas on this one 
however: I think that the default view of the Finder is more appropriate to 
today use of a computer and fits better with the Stepish paradigm. Having said 
that I don't see anything wrong in supporting alternate modes, as long as they 
are not the default.

I must confess that I've red numerous articles about the spatial file managers 
and I'm one of those that "still don't get it"... they always go on and on on 
how it isn't only a matter of opening a new window for each opened component 
and remebering the attributes of that window, but in the end that's all I can 
actually see... all the talk about the folders being like objects, etc, maes 
some sense, but in the end it boils down to "each click opens a new window".


Best Regards,

Frederico Muñoz