GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 114608
delete key should not move to trash
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Currently Nautilus moves any selected files and/or folders into the trash when the user hits the delete key. This is done without any alert appearing to notify the user this has happened. One lab here at our University lost months worth of data because of this dangerous behavior. Nautilus either needs to stop moving files/folders in this manner or it needs to put up a dialog asking for permission when the delete key is used. Actually I don't see why we are using the delete key for this at all since the meta key shown for this in the Nautilus menus (Edit->Move to Trash) is Ctrl-T. Why does that not suffice? Please eliminate this horribly dangerous behavior in Nautilus.
Huh? 'Delete', according to Webster's dictionary, means "to blot out; to erase; to expunge...". Why are you going around hitting a key called "delete" if you don't want your stuff erased? Besides, anything moved to the Trash is recoverable--it's simply a holding place for things that you think you want to get rid of. Perhaps I'm just being dense (besides I'm not a usability expert or a maintainer--just a bugsquad volunteer), but if you don't want people deleting files, I don't see why you don't have someone remove the "delete" keys from all your keybaords or make your filesystems read-only. Can you explain in more detail why this is a problem?
A reasonable file manager shouldn't do things like move files with a single keystroke. If the user has his window manager set to 'focus follows cursor', accidents could easily occur while editing files if the cursor accidentally moves into open nautilus windows. Also we already have an assigned keyboard alternative for moving items to the trash (Ctrl-T) which is properly not a single keystroke.
Alright, well I'm not a usability expert or a maintainer, so I'll reopen and let someone else look at this. I'm going to add the GNOMEVER2.2 and usability keywords. I'll leave it to someone else to set the priority and severity appropriately, if normal & normal aren't the right settings.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 125087 ***