GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 350393
Nautilus needs to be able to make all icons the same size
Last modified: 2016-12-11 12:58:32 UTC
Icons in Nautilus, IMHO look awful usually because they are different sizes and the whole thing becomes a giant mess. Nautilus needs to be able to have icons set to the same size like in Konqeror or Windows Explorer which would make it look considerably neater and easier to browse. Using compact mode makes this worse as everything just looks like a giant jumble and using normal mode results in massive amounts of wasted space. There are probably people that like "messy mode" so it would be a good idea to make the two modes optional and able to switch to and from. Being able to set the icon size (like Konqueror's Tiny, small, medium, large, huge setting) would be great as it makes them all consistant.
When Nautilus was designed, allowing users to set the individual size of icon items was considered a big feature. The was no doubt in response to the very limited options available to users of the current OS9 Finder. You had a choice of small and large icons. When some members of the Nautilus team went to Apple to develop the OSX Finder, variable icon sizes were explored and then rejected due mainly to aesthetic reason, similar to the ones expressed above. Instead, variable icon sizes enforced across a container were added, with an arbitrary max size of 128 x 128. I think a good first step would be some sort of preference to enforce a consistent icon size in a container, using the defaults. Setting up a meta-zoom for icon sizes, when containers already have a zoom level, might be too confusing.
Created attachment 99412 [details] Screenshot of the mess "When Nautilus was designed, allowing users to set the individual size of icon items was considered a big feature". I have no idea how this can be considered a "feature". Have all kinds of icon sizes in the same window is lack of consistency. All icons should have the same size, be they small, medium or large.
User-resizable icons are definitely a feature, extremely valuable for spatial organization. I use it all the time. "Consistency" is not a feature by itself. If you don't want icons to be different sizes -- do not resize them. If you resized one accidentally -- right-click -> Restore Icon's Original Size. Or do you mean that icons are created having different sizes?
(In reply to comment #3) > User-resizable icons are definitely a feature, extremely valuable for spatial > organization. I use it all the time. "Consistency" is not a feature by itself. Icon resizing can be useful on the desktop in particular. Some users like to have a big trash bin, for example. > If you don't want icons to be different sizes -- do not resize them. If you > resized one accidentally -- right-click -> Restore Icon's Original Size. > > Or do you mean that icons are created having different sizes? I agree - what is the cause of the issue here? Manual resizing, or icons being automatically assigned different sizes? I've never witnessed the latter.
*** Bug 498516 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
As explained above, resizable icons are a feature and resized icons can be restored to their original size easily. Closing as invalid.