GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 168642
unfriendly filesystem nomenclature...
Last modified: 2010-06-11 07:43:56 UTC
Hi, Hope this is the right place to put this... idea... feature request...? Seems to me, one of the most impenetrable features of linux to the new user (as one) is the arcane (to the new user anyway) naming conventions of the file system - supported by Apple's (& Lindows?) decision to provide a new nomenclature for their nix. I notice that gnome provides to all it's file/directory icons, within the properties dialogue (right click on icons) a "Notes" tab. When a note is written it displays a little pined note icon over the file/directory icon. I also notice that all the icons in the red-hat (or what ever) menu & panel have helpful little pop-up descriptions about themselves. What if... All the "Notes" tabs were pre-populated with helpful explanations of what each element of the file system was/meant? And, those pre-populated "Notes" popped-up with theses descriptions when the cursor was moved over them. Perhaps "Notes" to be displayed in such a way could by identified by starting the line with some specific comment symbol? Then, for example, when a new user dragged their cursor over the directory named "bin" instead of thinking it was the shorthand for rubbish bin, they would see a pop-up that explained it was short hand for binary files and binary files are executable... You get my drift. This way, the new user gets to educate themselves about the new nomenclature used in the linux file system as they use it. When they've learnt all they want to know about, they just remove/uncomment/replace the text from the "Notes" tab of the "Properties" dialogue. Just an idea. Let me know if it might be more useful somewhere else (within reason:) - Metadata component? Regards, Morgan.
Thanks for your input. I think this kind of user-guiding is really desireable.
I think an option (per user, but also able to be overridden on a per directory basis) to allow popup of notes would be a good idea. I personally don't use the directory notes feature, because they do _NOT_ popup!
We already have a bug report for file tooltips. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a duplicate of that request. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 147642 ***
Hmm, this is not a duplicate - the title of the bug is "unfriendly filesystem nomenclature...". (Nothing to do with tooltips.) By way of example, my suggestion was to use tooltips (by default) to provide some amelioration of this unfriendliness. The addition of tooltips wasn't the bug, merely a means to make some use of the Notes tab which in itself was merely a suggestions to make the filesystem nomenclature more friendly. So, this bug is at least 2 degrees of separation away from bug 147642. So, I'll re-open. (Interesting to see it's still being read.)
Apologies if I misrepresented your bug report. That said, it would be helpful if you provided a short and simple description of both the issue that you are reporting (including specific examples of the 'nomenclature' that you think is unfriendly) and your proposed solution. Verbose bug reports are difficult to process. Changing status to need info. Please don't change the status of this bug.
Well, the original post provided an example - "bin": rubbish bin or binary executable? As a solution I suggested explanations in tooltips. Other examples might include renaming the whole *nix filesystem... but, I thought tooltips both educative and less disruptive. I guess everyone has a point of view on the desirability of verbose bug reports, yours might be contrasted with that of Christian Neumair. I suspect any difficulty in processing this bug has more to do with it being systemic, complex and culturally based, of which the verbosity of the report is a merely a symptom.
(In reply to comment #6) > Well, the original post provided an example - "bin": rubbish bin or binary > executable? > > As a solution I suggested explanations in tooltips. Other examples might > include renaming the whole *nix filesystem... but, I thought tooltips both > educative and less disruptive. The idea of tooltips is a good one. I also agree that a meaningful explanatory note about file type would be a useful addition to the properties window (it would be great to have that as a separate report). The best way to deal with the issue is to make sure that users don't unintentionally stumble into things like /bin, however. I'm not sure how useful this is as a bug report, however. Unix naming conventions are not Nautilus's responsibility, and this issue is extremely general. Or am I missing something?
Yes, I don't think you're missing anything - extremely general would be to the point. It's over 5 years since the original post and I'm now less amused than I once was by directories named bin. That said, to the interested new user - and most new users of this OS would be interested - the suggestion that they should be somehow shut out of the guts is an anathema to me. It was the opportunity that I wouldn't be shut out of the guts that made me first interested in becoming a user... There's 40 odd years of history to the nomenclature of this OS - if that history could be revealed and the file-system made less opaque, then we'd have two birds for the cost of one stone.
I'm sympathetic to this issue, but I'm closing this as not gnome. These naming conventions aren't Nautilus's or GNOME's responsibility. Feel free to report the Properties info bug as a separate issue, and feel free to add comments to bug 147642.