GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 696368
"Sort folders before files" is disabled by default
Last modified: 2015-04-28 15:10:22 UTC
In previous GNOME releases the folders were always sorted before files. It is the reasonable thing to do, users are used to it from other operating systems like Windows as well. But it seems the default option was switched in the recent past, and now Nautilus mixes files and folders by default, creating a complete chaos. I heard and saw several people to comment on that and they always complained. Please fix the regression and make "Sort folders before files" enabled by default again. nautilus-3.7.92-1.fc19.x86_64
Agreed, and remember the sort order, as well as icon / list view mode per folder!
Reinout, let's keep the issues separated. Please report another bug about per-folder settings. Thanks.
I don't think the change of a default value, which can be tweaked in the UI from Preferences, can be classified as a regression. There are arguments for which both values could be good as default. In the latest redesigns we prioritized the default to encourage a more shallow use of file management; you can also get a similarly grouped order by sorting by Type (even if it's not exactly the same, as other files are sorted alphabetically "locally" relative to their type in that case). In any case, I don't feel like changing the default again for 3.8 at this point, so I'll punt this for now.
It's a regression only if the change was not intentional, of course :-) Which, it seems, it was. I understand the direction, folders are supposed to be old-school and people should use new apps like Documents, Music and Photos instead. I still don't like it, but that's just my personal opinion. It would be great to have some numbers behind the change (the number of people who switch the option back, for example), but we won't get them except for some "surveys", which are never fully representative. It would be great to have an infrastructure in GNOME that would allow to send anonymous usage statistics to GNOME. This would be an ideal candidate to look at.
(In reply to Cosimo Cecchi from comment #3) > In any case, I don't feel like changing the default again for 3.8 at this > point, so I'll punt this for now. Maybe it's time to take a decision on this? Do you think this should be changed back or should we close this as WONTFIX?
Yeah, there is a setting and a design decision was made. WONTFIX for now. If you think it could be a problem, put your thoughts here and reach designers to convince them pointing to your thoughts here.