GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 163834
Use consistent units in nautilus-cd-burner
Last modified: 2009-07-29 10:46:27 UTC
#: nautilus-cd-burner.c:961 #, c-format msgid "%d MB" #: nautilus-cd-burner.c:308 #, c-format msgid "" "Please put a rewritable or blank disc, with at least %d MiB free, into the " "drive." #: nautilus-cd-burner.c:312 #, c-format msgid "Please put a blank disc, with at least %d MiB free, into the drive." #: nautilus-cd-burner.c:316 #, c-format msgid "" "Please replace the disc in the drive with a rewritable or blank disc, with " "at least %d MiB free." #: nautilus-cd-burner.c:320 #, c-format msgid "" "Please replace the disc in the drive with a blank disc, with at least %d MiB " "free." #: make-iso.c:704 #, c-format msgid "Not enough space to store disc image (%ld Megabyte needed)" msgid_plural "Not enough space to store disc image (%ld Megabytes needed)" Please use the same storage units everywhere in nautilus-cd-burner, and try to spell them consistently. Also, it would probably be good if this choice was also made consistent with the use of units in Nautilus and the rest of GNOME, for usability reasons.
2005-01-12 William Jon McCann <mccann@jhu.edu> * make-iso.c (nautilus_burn_make_iso): * nautilus-cd-burner.c (init_dialog): Use consistent size units (Closes: #163834)
It seems the change was done so that "MiB" would be used everywhere. Unfortunately, http://developer.gnome.org/documents/style-guide/units.html seems to suggest that "MB" be used. This is AFAIK also what most of the rest of GNOME, including Nautilus, uses.
When dealing with disk sizes and data file sizes it is important to disambiguate the usage of the size units. Ambiguity confuses the user. Confusion leads to error. Binary prefixes are a standard and unobtrusive way to differentiate the units used by hardware and media (1 KB == 1000 B) and those sometimes, and incorrectly, used by software (1 KB = 1024 B). The binary prefixes have been well designed to take advantage of effects of human vision and cognition. In context, there is very little chance that a novice user will have no idea what "400 MiB" represents. In fact, there is a good chance that this user will actually perceive "400 MB" if he/she has been conditioned to expect SI units in that context. On the other hand, with no ambiguity, the expert user is able to accurately define the meaning and use it without error. The arguments against binary prefixes are usually circular and rely on convention. Something like: we shouldn't use binary prefixes in software because they are not yet in the popular lexicon. It is important to recognize that software is what introduced the symbols "KB", "MB", "GB" into popular use. The implicit assumption of this argument is that the error incurred in the conventional misuse of the SI prefixes is small. However, this is no longer the case and the error is growing as media size increases.
Jon - If you want to pursue your desire to use "MiB," the docs list is the place to discuss a change to the style guide. In the meantime, I think we should stick with what the style guide says.
The units in n-c-b are consistent.
That may very well be, but they're not consistent with neither Nautilus nor the rest of GNOME. Reopening.
I just run into the "MiB" notation in nautilus-cd-burner. It's the first time I've seen this unit ever (and I thought I was computer-litterate ;-)) In the end, I don't really care if the files use 485 MB or 485 MiB, I care if they fit on the CD. Thus I don't think the precision gained by explaining exactly what unit is used (binary, not binary) is worth the confusion this "MiB" will create in almost every single user.
*** Bug 328296 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The document pointed out by Christian doesn't seem to be the result of a consensus. We should wait and follow what the HIG will say on this. I'm marking this as dependent on bug 309850.
In addition to what I've already said about this - which I stand by. I'd like to point out that regardless of what is decided for the rest of GNOME there is still a real and important problem for a tool that writes to optical discs: 700 MB (80 min) CD-R disc = 700 MiB 4.7 GB DVD-R disc = 4.3 GiB
I have a suggestion - I talked about it in bug 328296 - that it may help you. My suggestion: * Display the data size in both SI unit and binary unit. e.g. "Data size: 635 MiB (665 MB)" Also Shaun McCance has said the same in bug 309850, comment #5 (2005-07-12 21:17 UTC)
Well, personally I think we should use whatever unit that users see on the stuff they buy. If they buy a blank CD that says "720MB" or "800MB" on it, they should expect it to be filled (more or less) by what GNOME says is 720/800MB of stuff. If they buy a 40GB hard drive, they expect to be able to select and drag 40GB of files onto it. (Well, apart from the usual filesystem overhead.) With the advent of iPods and USB sticks, the terms MB and GB are much more prevalent than they used to be... while users might not know the exact definition of a megabyte or gigabyte, they're much more aware of how much storage they have at their disposal, in numerical terms, on such devices. (FWIW, I've never seen blank DVD/CDs or hard disks that give sizes in "MiB" or "GiB"... are they common anywhere else?)
I have hardly seen the usage of Si-units at all.
I've never once seen it listed on a product in Canada or the United States.
An ubuntu bug about this has been filled here : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/130282
The short term solution here is to make n-c-b consistent with GNOME (1KB = 1024B). The longer term solution would be to make nautilus report things in terms most familiar to the users, and the least ambiguous. Since nautilus deals with storage, and most storage uses 1KB = 1000B, nautilus should also use this. It doesn't hurt that it's generally recognized international standard, too. There would be no problem with n-c-b reporting in MiB when it detects a CD and MB when it detects a DVD.
At some point, we're going to have to accept that users are not developers, and that they could care less whether MiB is pedantically correct. It is absolutely unfathomable to me that developers would want to use a unit that the vast majority of people using the app aren't familiar with. I can guarantee you that most of our users think that MiB has something to do with Will Smith. As another example: the speedometer on my car measures its velocity, not the speed. However, a cop has never once given me a "velocitating" ticket.
I am a user. I *do* care about consistency. Heck, I even dug this report. It does not really matter if it's megabytes, but it *does* become significant in gigabytes and even more in terabytes, so don't worry about Will Smith. Mandatory reading: http://www.iec.ch/zone/si/si_bytes.htm However, I do not care what you are going to choose to display (MB or MiB), it all seems to depend on underlying technology (RAM is binary, network is decimal, storage used to be binary ~10 years ago, now it's decimal, thanks to marketing guys), i.e. it is context dependent. So whatever you choose, make sure that G means 10^9 and Gi means 2^30. You leave no choice to the user, but to be confused all the time (this app shows in GB but really means GiB, other app realy realy means GB and so on), if you keep being inconsistent. BTW, nautilus-2.20 displays M/G instead of Mi/Gi, and that is simply wrong: I bought 500GB=465GiB disk, not 465GB, see the 7% difference? Is that pedantic? Can I get 7% interest rate instead of 0%? There were even class action suits what G means: http://compzwizard.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html Some users need some education, that is true, but you simply don't give them any chance by being inconsistent: you are the leaders and you lead nowhere by showing bad examples. Thanks
(In reply to comment #17) At some point, we're going to have to accept that users are not developers, and that they're wholly unaware of the K = 1024 convention. They think that k = 1000, because that's what it means EVERYWHERE else. Nautilus should display file sizes in powers of 1,000, too, as should all utilities that report disk or file sizes. The current use in Nautilus of "MB" to mean "1,048,576 bytes" is simply wrong, conflicting with the GNOME Documentation Style Guide definition[1] of "mega M 10^6", the Linux Programmer's Manual definition[2] of "M mega 10^6 = 1000000", and other open source software. It should either be "MB" for 1,000,000 bytes or "MiB" for 1,048,576 bytes, preferably the former. Nautilus CD burner seems to be (mostly) right, assuming "%d MB" and "%ld Megabyte" are actually powers of 1,000. CDs are not an integer multiple of 2^20, but they're commonly labeled as if they were.[3] Most other media, like "4.7 GB" DVDs, are labeled in powers of 1,000. Since nautilus-cd-burner is burning to both CDs and DVDs, it should probably report sizes with both conventions. Also, prefixes like "mega-" are never capitalized when written out, if we're following normal style rules.[4] [1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdp-style-guide/2.22/units-1.html.en [2] Type "man 7 units" at a command line [3] "700 MB CD" = 360,000 sectors * 2048 bytes/sector = 737,280,000 bytes = 703.1 MiB [4] http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec06.html#6.2.2
*** Bug 522270 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
nautilus-cd-burner has been replaced by Brasero in the GNOME 2.26 release. If your bug still applies to Brasero, please feel free to re-open the bug, and reassign it to brasero itself.