GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 418197
No way to unmount media except for context menu
Last modified: 2008-09-09 17:12:38 UTC
There is currently no way to unmount/eject media volumes that does not involve using the context menu. This is very un-disoverable and has led to many complaints from my supported users, since users tend to just plug out media volumes, even if they are still mounted. The "Don't do that" notification is not much of a help, since it directs the user to the context menu, without any explanation what exactly the context menu is. There should be an easy discoverable method of unmounting/ejecting media volumes, that does not involve the context menu. The HIG explicitly states "Be aware that popup menus are used primarily by intermediate and advanced users." Since the HIG also calls the context menu a 'shortcut menu', this implies that there should be another way to unmount a volume. Other information:
See bugs #115763, #139143 and #172749 for specific implementation suggestions. There seem to be three existing proposals: a) Make "Eject Media" possible by dragging the media icon to the trash can. Pro: * Drag'n'Drop * Known from MacOS and OS X Contra: *Neither very discoverable nor intuitive b) Eject media by adding a icon to the notification area Pro: * Visible Contra: * May not scale well * ?(No drag'n'drop) * 'Polutes' the notification are. I don't think it was designed for stuff like that. c) Add an 'Eject' icon to the media entries in the 'Places' menu. Pro: * Somewhat visible Contra: * ?(No drag'n'drop) * May involve changes to GTK+
As a datapoint, there's also mockups of header approach for nautilus: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-September/msg00330.html
I would add to the list: d) Add a File->Eject (or similar) menu item to the nautilus application menu bar, shortcut Ctrl+E (or similar), that was active whenever: - an ejectable volume's icon was selected on the desktop or in the Computer window - the nautilus window for the top level folder of an ejectable volume was focused This would seem to be the simplest extension of the current model, it could of course co-exist with some of the other suggestions (as it does in OS X).
that bug is fixed in next Gnome 2.24 Fix is "c) Add an 'Eject' icon to the media entries in the 'Places' menu"
Right, closing as a duplicate of the other bug then. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 343839 ***