I do 100% agree on this solution

I agree with this as well. I really can't see a point having a disfunctional [DEL] key on my keyboard--it's flagged with "Del" not without a reason. If this behaviour is meant to be consistent with [CTRL]+[C], [CTRL]+[V], etc. then I'd like to mention that the [DEL] key doesn't belong to the same key group as [C], [V], etc. It's a function key (or however this is called) and thus it should actually _have_ a function.

By the way, it is rather counter-intuitive. Both me (20 years of experience as a desktop user) and friends of mine (novices, some months of use) are baffled why they can't delete any file. After three months of using gnome-shell, I discovered today how to delete a file not right-clicking on it or dragging it to a minuscule hidden item in the left bar (the Trash).

They can't even *open* the Trash (I had one guy filling most of his hard disk because he did not know how to empty it), and believe me when I say they will definitely NOT read the help, or file a bug (they do not know how; heck, they do not even know what a "software bug" is, or how to open Yelp).

Now:
 * Mac OS X: "del" works as advertised
 * Windows '95: "del" works as advertised
 * Windows '98: "del" works as advertised
 * ...all other Windows consistent
 * Thunar: "del" works as advertised
 * Konqueror/Dolphin: "del" works as advertised
 * GNOME 2.x: "del" works as advertised

The user switches to GNOME 3.x
"del" does not work anymore.
Normal user infers: Nautilus 3.x is broken.

...and he is right, in a sense.

I am all for changing what does not work optimally, but why changing something that works? (as the shut-down/suspend button, even Windows provides a small arrow to choose a non-default option, such as reboot).

And now I try using ctr-del in evolution to delete my emails, which obviously does not work... totally inconsistent!

The rational is in the nautilus mailing list. Thread starts at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2011-March/msg00018.html.

The commit to revert is cce40272e35b20b4aaf5f93109a05b7bb89704d5. That would already improve usability a lot, IMO.

(In reply to comment #5)
> The rational is in the nautilus mailing list. Thread starts at
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2011-March/msg00018.html.

In that thread giorgio proposed ctr-del, nobody agreed on that. I understand the problem, but the solution of ctr-del is just wrong, and was not discussed as far as I know.

Indeed, most people in the thread started saying that we needed a better notification that a file was removed instead of a dialog. The Ctrl+Del solution that only a kind of weird compromise in the end.

IMHO a very nice solution would be to reuse a concept introduced by the Shell: show a banner "File XXX was moved to trash [Undo]" for a few seconds. This is both a confirmation that the action was done, and a nice way to cancel it in case of mistake. I think that's a good pattern to use all over the desktop when needed.

(In reply to comment #8)
> IMHO a very nice solution would be to reuse a concept introduced by the Shell:
> show a banner "File XXX was moved to trash [Undo]" for a few seconds. This is
> both a confirmation that the action was done, and a nice way to cancel it in
> case of mistake. I think that's a good pattern to use all over the desktop when
> needed.

Yes, and work is being done. See bug 167501 for the generic infrastructure to allow that.

Related bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647048

Note that the solution proposed here wouldn't solve the cat-on-keyboard or kid-pressing-random-keys use cases described here and in follow-ups [1], so please read the whole thread before commenting here.

[1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2011-March/msg00027.html

won't solve the coffee on the CPU neither :(

Cat on keyboard or kid pressing random keys are not a use cases, they are keyboard deficiencies you can solve by locking (by software) the keyboard with a another mean.

Can this be made an option?

By default "del" deletes files and there would be an option to change the delete action to "ctrl+del" for those who have cats or kids?

(In reply to comment #3)
> 
> Now:
>  * Mac OS X: "del" works as advertised
>  * Windows '95: "del" works as advertised
>  * Windows '98: "del" works as advertised
>  * ...all other Windows consistent
>  * Thunar: "del" works as advertised
>  * Konqueror/Dolphin: "del" works as advertised
>  * GNOME 2.x: "del" works as advertised
> 
To add to that list,
Apps where action is revert-able:
Evolution : "del" works as advertised
Thunderbird: "del" works as advertised (yea not gnome but has trash)

Gmail, YahooMail, AOL and almost all web mail interfaces "del" works as advertised and Delete is a revert-able action. 

Del also works in Apps where action can not be reverted:
Tomboy, Gcalctool, etc..
All GNOME apps recognize 'Del'. (atleast the ones I tested) 

> 
> The user switches to GNOME 3.x
> "del" does not work anymore.
> Normal user infers: Nautilus 3.x is broken.
> 
> ...and he is right, in a sense.


> (In reply to comment #13)
> Can this be made an option?
> 
> By default "del" deletes files and there would be an option to change the
> delete action to "ctrl+del" for those who have cats or kids?

Ha! don't try asking that.. 
I mentioned exactly that when the change was made and got flamed.. ;)

(In reply to comment #14)
> Evolution : "del" works as advertised

careful, or they will make ctr-del in evolution too now :(

Just to keep things factually correct...

(In reply to comment #14)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > 
> > Now:
> >  * Mac OS X: "del" works as advertised

In Finder "Move to Trash" is Command+Delete.

> Gmail, YahooMail, AOL and almost all web mail interfaces "del" works as
> advertised and Delete is a revert-able action. 

I'm not sure what you mean by "works as advertised" but in Gmail the shortcut to Trash an email is "#".

(In reply to comment #10)
> Related bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647048
> 
> Note that the solution proposed here wouldn't solve the cat-on-keyboard or
> kid-pressing-random-keys use cases described here and in follow-ups [1], so
> please read the whole thread before commenting here.
> 
> [1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2011-March/msg00027.html

I think you should lock your screen then when you are not in front of it, or create a separate account for your kid with Pingu installed.

After all, I believed the whole rationale of having a Trash folder was for when you press Del by mistake? You go there and restore from there.

Why should we have both the Trash *and* a complex way to delete a file? It is the same reason I never completely understood why asking a confirmation before moving files to the Trash (if you can recover them from there).

> In Finder "Move to Trash" is Command+Delete.

Right, my bad. I used that shortcut maybe once in my lifetime, because all the rest of times I dragged files to the trash icon in the dock. But it is much more prominent in Mac OS X than it is in Nautilus (you can even unmount images or remove icons from the dock by dragging them there), so that may count as a different scenario. Note incidentally it is "Command"+Delete, and not "Ctrl"+Delete, which has slightly different semantics. And I still find it cumbersome.

I also mistake more easily between Ctrl+Del and Shift-Del (which, following the same logic, may be better suited as Ctrl+Shift+Del), and I have seen users blindly pressing Enter == "Delete" to the "no-way-back" delete confirmation dialog out of habit, and not realizing it was in fact bypassing the Trash folder.

Anyway, if we really want to find a good way to establish once and for all if it is better to use "Del" or "Ctrl+Del" (or "Super"+Del, who knows?), put a question in a usability survey targeted at GNOME users. Put there also a question about the Suspend/Halt button, while you are at it.

This might be the only good way to put numbers behind personal opinions, and serve users better. I am all for the "let the developer" decide policy, but when it comes to such things as UI elements, I think developers might just alienate users by acting without asking the user base.

If you do not want a survey, I'll call you chicken :-D.

It *might* be that switching the delete function to ctrl+del was a good idea but it's at least 26 years too late. At least since the release of Windows 95 everyone who's working with a computer knows that hitting the del-key will delete the selected object and that he can restore it from the trash-folder if it was a mistake.

So switching this function now to a new shortcut is absoutely confusing at least to new users and might keep them away from gnome because deleting objects doesn't work in the way they expected.

So please restore the old function of deleting objects by using only the del-key ASAP.

I also want the DEL key back. It took me hours to find out that it's a feature and not a bug when I used GNOME 3 in VirtualBox. I even installed Ubuntu as a VM just to test out if the DEL key works there and indeed it did and so I found out that nothing is wrong with my VirtualBox settings. Hours later I found a blog post via Google telling me that the DEL key is meant to not work in GNOME 3.

I think nobody except the geeks in here will spend hours of googling just to find out why their DEL key isn't working - instead they will hate Linux or at least GNOME 3 and they will switch back to Windows because nothing is working as they'd expect it to work.

PS: The only reason why the DEL key in Mac OS X isn't working as in Windows is, that there is NO SPECIAL DEL KEY. There's only the arrow key which deletes the last character you typed in (I don't know how you call this key in English) and this obviously is a completely different function than the DEL key has on PC keyboards.

A workaround is to activate the "can-change-accels" option below "org.gnome.desktop.interface" with dconf-editor. After that start nautilus, select a file, open the "edit" menu, hover "move to trash" and press DEL twice to change the shortcut back to DEL. After that you should deactivate "can-change-accels"

But this is only a workaround and the old function of deleting objects by using only the del-key should be restored ASAP.

First, let me add that the non-functioning delete key is an EXTREMELY POOR design decision. Between this and having to know the alt+menu combination to shutdown (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=643457 ), I'm really starting to think Gnome 3 has gone backwards by about 15 years. Who thought all the hidden key combinations for established functionality would be a good idea? My mind is absolutely blown by how a group that's supposed to be making the "Next Great Desktop" can miss such basic things.

Second:
The current delete key functionality is poor because:
1) It's inconsistent. The delete key works in every prior version of Nautilus I've ever used. It works in lots of other Gnome software. It even works in every version of Windows I've ever used. Users expect the delete key to delete the selected files. 

2) It's un-discoverable. I had to google bug reports to figure out that the crack-head designers thought it'd be a good idea to switch the (well-established, consistent) key to ctrl+delete instead.

3) There's a trash can. Files aren't gone when they're deleted. It's been that way for many years, and idea of a "trash can" is generally understood by everyone.

4) There's nothing all that wrong with a confirmation dialog box. This prevents the cat-on-keyboard "use case", or at least makes it more difficult. But switching to an obscure keyboard combination is decidedly *not* the best design for preventing accidental deletion. 

Third:
For others who are experiencing this issue, I found a guide on how to make the delete key work like it should again:

http://www.dnmouse.org/autoten/gnome-3-extra-tips/180-get-delete-key-working.html

It's funny that the article starts with this quote:
"For some strange reason the delete key has been changed to a combination key Crtl+Delete. I'm assuming it was changed to avoid accidently deleting the wrong thing, but thats what the waste bin is for isnt it!??"

(In reply to comment #21)
> 2) It's un-discoverable. I had to google bug reports to figure out that the
> crack-head designers thought it'd be a good idea to switch the
> (well-established, consistent) key to ctrl+delete instead.

1. Please be moderate and assume people mean well: https://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct .

2. The shortcut is _visible_ if you actually open the Edit menu.

3. The person who proposed this and actually did the patch[1] isn't really part of the gnome design team FWIW.

[1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2011-March/msg00041.html, instead of, you know, whine on bugzillas.

Is there any update to this?  I haven't updated nautilus yet, but the version that ships with the F16 live iso contains this bug.

Proposing WONTFIX. As written before this is not considered a bug but intentional behavior.

I would object to that. You can argue if it is not a bug but it is surely a design error that needs to be fixed. 

Having the shortcut to move to the trash and really delete a file is prone to confusions and defeats the whole purpose of the trash. The shortcuts need to be more different.

Having Delete for moving to the recycle bin and Shit+Delete for really deleting sounds like a good proposal to me.

(In reply to comment #25)

> Having the shortcut to move to the trash and really delete a file is prone to
> confusions and defeats the whole purpose of the trash.

I meant:

Having the shortcut to move to the trash and really delete a file *so similar* is prone to confusions and defeats the whole purpose of the trash.

*** Bug 667146 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

My understanding is that this was a patch proposed from a non-nautilus developer that was later accepted despite strong opposition.  I, too, strongly disagree with this change, and hope that it is not truly intended behavior as is suggested in comment #24.

Deleting should be intuitive.  And while its probably not a  mission-critical issue, users are faced with a dilemma after they press delete and the files have not been deleted.

They could:
1) Press delete again, maybe it didn't take?  After a few of these, they're left to (2)-(4).
2) Navigate the edit menu and select "Move to Trash" -- hopefully, if they do this, they'll notice that the shortcut is Ctrl + Del.  They'll of course be confused, but at least the files are deleted, they can look into *why* the shortcut has been changed later.
3) Right click on the files and select "Move to Trash" -- in this case, however, they wouldn't be shown that the shortcut has, in fact, been inexplicably been changed and they'd be just left wondering why the Delete key was disabled with no indication that actually the shortcut was changed.
4) Look into why (e.g. by Googling "Gnome 3 Delete key not working") and then come across a bug like this which, quite arrogantly explains that nautilus has decided to change one of the most commonly used shortcuts in a file manager to a much more complex and much less intuitive combination of keys.

Neither of these situations are good for our users.  At least (2)-(4) allow the user to get on with it eventually and delete the files, although both of them would still manage to confuse or down right piss off the user.

For such a huge change, there needs to be a correspondingly huge motivation.  In this case, this is simply not there.

Delete should *just work*.  Move files to the trash without notification, or with a subtle, non-modal notification.  Shift+Del or Ctrl+Del should also just work, by deleting the files (skipping the trash).  Notification here is a smaller issue -- whether you notify or not, or present a modal confirmation, either are fine with me.

But the fact that, without sufficient motivation for the change, a patch has snuck in that totally breaks the decades old tradition of having a few things, a small subset of features that *just work*, is, absolutely, a bug.

The proposed correct solution was the "undo", it is now merged. The ctr-del insanity has absolutely no reason to continue...

Commits c6279ac229545d7f64b64212383df2753482e233 and cce40272e35b20b4aaf5f93109a05b7bb89704d5 reverted in master. Bug fixed.

Just fantastic! ;-)

Cosimo reverted the revert... I think this is hopeless...

Is there some rationale for the revert of the revert?

(In reply to comment #33)
> Is there some rationale for the revert of the revert?

The commit message might help: http://git.gnome.org/browse/nautilus/commit/?id=29a050d986bd5fd86ef522617966768c8c40beb7

Maybe discussing this first on nautilus-list (and trying to keep things rational and technical) would help?

(In reply to comment #34)
> Maybe discussing this first on nautilus-list (and trying to keep things
> rational and technical) would help?
This is not really a "technical" issue, more a design question. *Sigh.*

I am just speechless for the amount of hatred over this topic; apparently some people think this is so important that it led a long-time GNOME contributor such as Xavier to think it was OK to break the rules of the game.

I really want to bring this back to a technical level though. The way we currently allow for keybindings to be changed, as noted in several pages in the web, is by modifying the can_change_accels setting, which is bad, non-intuitive and legacy; actually the reason I haven't removed support for that from Nautilus yet is this exact bug, since I don't think people use that for anything else.
I am open to have a GSettings key that turns on/off the use of the Ctrl modifier for file trashing, defaulting to on. Would that be enough to finally close this bug?

(In reply to comment #36)
> I am open to have a GSettings key that turns on/off the use of the Ctrl
> modifier for file trashing, defaulting to on. Would that be enough to finally
> close this bug?
I don't think it will really improve the situation. Personally, I'm not concerned about tech people that don't like pressing Ctrl+Del to delete a file; I'm concerned about the majority of users that will never discover the Ctrl trick, and will just think the keybinding does not work, period. People that can find the GSettings key can also discover the Ctrl trick.

So, for the general case: do you plan to keep Ctrl forever by default, or is there some UI improvement needed first? I think we need to go back to the standard Del key, because Ctrl is not discoverable, and because all other programs in GNOME and all other OSes work that way (even OS X...). Even showing a confirmation dialog would be better than the current situation. Have the designers worked on this recently?

(In reply to comment #37)
> programs in GNOME and all other OSes work that way (even OS X...). Even showing

Not true, see comment #16.

(In reply to comment #38)
> (In reply to comment #37)
> > programs in GNOME and all other OSes work that way (even OS X...). Even showing
> 
> Not true, see comment #16.
Apologies then. I'll ask Mac users I know about that. ;-)

(In reply to comment #39)
> (In reply to comment #38)
> > (In reply to comment #37)
> > > programs in GNOME and all other OSes work that way (even OS X...). Even showing
> > 
> > Not true, see comment #16.
> Apologies then. I'll ask Mac users I know about that. ;-)

On 10.7.2 (observing friendly Mac user #1):

 - I asked how he deletes file - he simply drag'n'drop to trash on the bar
 - I asked about short cut - he tried to press delete. Latter Command+Delete and other combination. Neither worked
 - When he checked the documentation it indicated Command+Delete however it did not worked

I cannot say why the Command+Delete did not worked.

(In reply to comment #37)

> I don't think it will really improve the situation. Personally, I'm not
> concerned about tech people that don't like pressing Ctrl+Del to delete a file;
> I'm concerned about the majority of users that will never discover the Ctrl
> trick, and will just think the keybinding does not work, period. People that
> can find the GSettings key can also discover the Ctrl trick.

I see; on the other hand keyboard shortcuts are inherently something used by tech people, and there are at least other three ways to trash a file with the mouse in the default layout.

Using a GSettings would also make it easy for distributors to change the default value if they want (rather than patching the code).

> So, for the general case: do you plan to keep Ctrl forever by default, or is
> there some UI improvement needed first? I think we need to go back to the
> standard Del key, because Ctrl is not discoverable, and because all other
> programs in GNOME and all other OSes work that way (even OS X...). Even showing
> a confirmation dialog would be better than the current situation. Have the
> designers worked on this recently?

This bug already has the 'ui-review' keyword...
I haven't received any input on this particular issue recently, but last time I talked about it with a designer he agreed with the choice that was made.
Keep in mind there are some cases which are inherently a problem if you use a single-key binding for trashing, as I mentioned in comment #10.

With the addition of a GSettings preference, this would really be a wontfix, but as it appears to be a very heated topic I am still open to entirely new solutions which are not a confirmation dialog and cover all the cases described.

(In reply to comment #41)
> I see; on the other hand keyboard shortcuts are inherently something used by
> tech people, and there are at least other three ways to trash a file with the
> mouse in the default layout.
In general, I agree; but the Del shortcut is one of the very few people usually know, with Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Even the one most known if I judge from my experience watching users.

> Using a GSettings would also make it easy for distributors to change the
> default value if they want (rather than patching the code).
Yeah, but I don't particularly care about this: I think the GNOME policy know is "make the default work for everybody".

> This bug already has the 'ui-review' keyword...
> I haven't received any input on this particular issue recently, but last time I
> talked about it with a designer he agreed with the choice that was made.
> Keep in mind there are some cases which are inherently a problem if you use a
> single-key binding for trashing, as I mentioned in comment #10.
> 
> With the addition of a GSettings preference, this would really be a wontfix,
> but as it appears to be a very heated topic I am still open to entirely new
> solutions which are not a confirmation dialog and cover all the cases
> described.
OK, I read the thread again to be sure I don't miss any of the concerns expressed when the change was made. So the problem with the "undo notification banner" solution suggested here is that your child or cat can delete a file while you're away, and you won't see the banner at all? If so, then the banner should be shown until we're sure you've seen it. What about showing it until the user switches folder or manually closes the banner? With this, you're even safer than Ctrl+Del.

I think this solution is interesting anyway, even if Ctrl+Del is kept, because it feels reassuring and natural (see how it's used when removing favorites from the Shell's dash).

After installing Fedora 16 and finding the Del key was broken in GNOME, I filed a bug report in RedHat's bugzilla:

 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=804340

It was closed as "NOTABUG" and I was referred upstream to this bug report. This definitely is a BUG. The DEL key worked correctly in previous versions of GNOME, now it doesn't; now it's broken. I press delete to delete a file and nothing happens. There is no sensible reason for hiding the delete functionality. 

There's no other way to describe changing to Ctrl-DEL except hiding the delete functionality. A new user will not be able to discover this key combination through any intuitive means and no on screen clues are provided. Essentially you're forcing the user to adopt the tedious delete process of scanning the desktop for a trashcan icon, then dragging the file there, a process which can take 10x as long as simply pressing the DEL key. 

The intuitive way to delete something is to press the button labelled "Delete". The change to Ctrl-DEL makes deleting files slower, less-intuitive, and harder to figure out for new users.

Please change this back to the original, intuitive, and easy process of hitting the DEL key!

Or, as an alternative, if you must keep the the Ctrl-DEL behavior, why not make it a configurable option, so GNOME defaults to the sane, standard, intuitive use of DEL to delete things. Then if someone *wants* to make deleting files harder, they can go to an options dialog and select to hide the delete functionality behind Ctrl-DEL or some other obscure key combo.

Re: making it configurable -- it is, although its not easy.  I believe I followed steps similar to those outlined by the user Kryo here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=116609

Its a shame that the developers ideologies have "fixed something that wasn't broken" and even more of a shame that they refuse to listen to the common sense outlined here and elsewhere about their change.

I'm not convinced that changes like these should be shoved down the throats of users, just because a vocal minority want them.  Its a pretty bizarre way to address the (legitimate) concerns, especially when better alternatives have been suggested.

It's not enough to simply make it configurable. The intuitive, standard, and discoverable usage needs to be the default. Make the wacky, non-standard combo the configurable option.

After reading through the comments and related email threads, it appears this whole problem was created a small, vocal minority of highly-technical users with esoteric concerns. Specifically, they regularly leave their computers unattended, running in an unlocked state, with nautilus displaying a directory of important files, while cats walk on the keyboard. They changed the key combo because they feel GNOME needs to protect them from the results of this usage without making them check their trash can for files the cats deleted when they were away. 

However, the bigger concern should be for the average user or the new user, who have a reasonable expectation that pressing the delete key will delete things and who will not know or be able to easily discover the cat-protection-key-combo. They will just think "linux sucks" and move on. 

A tech-savvy user with a deletion cat will be able to easily reconfigure the key combo  to Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Command-Del by editing a conf file from the command line. BUT, a newbie 1) won't know that's what needs to be done to make the Del key work 2) won't know how to do it 3) won't understand why an arcane procedure like that is needed to enable something as basic as deleting files.

One other point is that Cosimo is simply wrong when he says only "tech people" delete files with a key combo. This is the default way of deleting files I've seen used by nearly every Windows user I've ever worked with. And most new GNU/Linux users are ex-Windows user. Windows sucks in a multitude of ways but at least the delete key still works.

And that's not to mention that we should be concerned about making the UI efficient, consistent, intuitive, and make as many operations as possible discoverable by new users with resorting to Google searches of bug reports.

(In reply to comment #44)
> I'm not convinced that changes like these should be shoved down the throats of
> users, just because a vocal minority want them.  Its a pretty bizarre way to

Though I understand you care deeply about this issue, comments like above are not appreciated. To be clear: I am not referring to disagreement, just the way that it is worded.

If you want to discuss my comment further: bugmaster@gnome.org

Gnome has an undo functionnality now. In the mean time, Ubuntu has reverted this already, and you only have to press del to remove a file. That explains certainly why a lot of user's still don't complain here, as ubuntu has the largest gnome community of all distributions.

Can't we have a consensus between designers and gnome developpers, asking them what behaviour they want, and depending on the result:

- go back to the previous behaviour like ubuntu.
- close this bug advitam and explain why, so nobody would ever complain again?

*** Bug 672958 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

> Its a shame that the developers ideologies have "fixed something that wasn't
> broken"
I totally agree with that.

So, discussing... discussing... months have passed now, and nothing has been done yet. This thread was started April 26th 2011 and we're now March 28th 2012: almost a year!!!!
What are you waiting for, more complaints? Restore this tricky useless combination to the old behaviour!

*** This is not a forum but a technical bugtracker, so please stick to arguments instead of meta-discussion.
It's open source: No obligations and you can recompile yourself if you want to change it and disagree with maintainers. 
See https://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct before adding further comments. ***

Since the whole world asks for this, I think you should listen to them.
Anyway, I just give up, developers wouldn't hear us even if we would scream.

Add my vote.

And mine

Do not add "me too" comments. It creates bugmail for everybody subscribed to this bug. Mail takes time to read and delete and keeps people from working.
Also see comment 50. And if you feel like expressing that you disagree with me, do it via private email but not here. Thanks.

*** Bug 649130 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Created attachment 214251 [details]
Mockup of a file deletion operation

Ok, almost everything about this has been said.

Relevant and useful comments: #12, #45, and a few others.

 - Devs don't want to have a popup dialog to confirm file deletion (popup dialog is still useful for the Shift+Del - remove permanently command)
 - Absolutely noone wants to keep Ctrl+Del to delete files (it's not discoverable for new users, every computer uses a simple Del keystroke, cannot be easily changed, and so on..)
 - To make it consistent, every GNOME app would have to change it's deletion key to Ctrl+Del (eog, evolution..) please DON'T

I may add that I've been migrating 11 PCs to Debian with nautilus for people I know (ranging from computer-illiterate to tech-savvy), and every single one of them told me "del key is not working" me: "it's Ctrl+Del" them: "but WHY?".

So I mocked up what a "clean" deletion system could be, allowing reverting of the key combo to a single Del keystroke, not involving a popup window and mostly preventing accidental file deletion - see the previously attached screenshot.

Let me apologize for not setting my locale to english. Also, my WM is openbox, my system font is Droid Sans, and my icon theme is Faenza. But you should get the general idea.

 - User presses Del, file is moved to the trash.
 - A ribbon appears, similar to the "search" ribbon.
 - Count of deleted files is displayed in the ribbon, and keeps increasing as the user deletes more files.
 - It also displays buttons to undo the whole file deletion frenzy (or only the last deleted file?), display the contents of trash in the window, and a button to dismiss the ribbon.
 - The ribbon does not disappear until the user presses the close button, even if he/she browses other directories.

Would that be a convenient solution?

(In reply to comment #57)
> 
> Would that be a convenient solution?

ABSOLUTELY!!!

Like using a Tablet OS (Win 8) on a regular desktop, the Ctrl-Del story is just MAD. Everybody I know hates it and a few people who where convinced to try Linux are about to drop it because of such things... :o(

The Solution presented by nodiscc does really seem good! It also makes the user experience more comfortable (hence adds value) so it really should be considered instead of Ctrl-Del to prevent psycho-alquaida-terror-cats from deleting unprotected, not backed-up ultra-top-secret critical proof of world conspiracy files....

I vote for it!

I hope it will changed to "DEL" only soon.
It is an realy anoing change and realy inconvenient evrytime press 2 keys for just delete. Unintuitive too :(. tere many inconsistencys.
realy anoing :(.

I cannot believe I did run into this as I've waited long to switch to gnome 3.

I absolutely hate to use <ctrl>+<del> to delete and also ask to get rid of it.

If the goal was to prevent accidental deletes, then it massively failed that goal.

#########
It is much easier to press <shift>+<del> instead of <ctrl>+<del> by accident and thus *permanently delete* your stuff than it is to confuse <del> with <shift>+<del>.
#########

Nobody I know did complain about <del> moving files to the trash in the filemanager.
Reading comments about cats dancing on the keyboard and spilling your coffee are an insult to everyone using the desktop to get work done.

It is inconsistent with other apps, with years of previous versions.
Gnome 3 has notification banners/slide-ins/however-you-call-it all over the place. So showing a notification (not a dialog you have to confirm) definitely is a much, much better way.

Why is this bug's priority "Normal" and its severity "enhancement"?

According to the description of Importance:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#importance

* The Priority should be High ("... includes cosmetic bugs of particularly high visibility, regressions from functionality...").

* The severity should be Minor ("Minor loss of function" as described in previous posts for non-technical users, and "other problem where easy workaround is present").

If Gnome 3  were a car, its brake would be moved to the left-hand side of the clutch "in case you press it by accident".

(In reply to comment #61)
> Why is this bug's priority "Normal" and its severity "enhancement"?

Changing that won't make a developer change things.

And I do think Normal is right; enhancement is due to the notification suggestion.

> If Gnome 3  were a car, its brake would be moved to the left-hand side of the
> clutch "in case you press it by accident".

This is not a forum. Such comments are not needed.

(In reply to comment #62)
> This is not a forum. Such comments are not needed.

My apologies.

*** Bug 683804 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

So, a promising solution has been proposed but no implementation seems to be forthcoming yet(?). In the meanwhile, could it, please, soon be changed back to DEL without Ctrl? I see no reason to keep annoying users with the current situation.

I've abandoned Linux for a while. Now that I'm back on gnome3 I see this annoying shortcut hasn't been restored yet. WHY???
Come on you nautilus developers, you see that no one wants this, while you still insist on having it like a long shortcut. You can read in the posts above that it's also a much more dangerous way of deleting since it could be easily confused with Shift+Del which would permanently delete files; it actually happened to me three or four times - since then I pay very very much attention at they keys that I press but I now changed my behaviour and I use the right-click > Delete menu item. CTRL + Del brought us only annoyances, danger, and no usefulness. Why do you insist on having CTRL to be pressed?

Actually I'm also wondering if you ever delete any files on your PCs... I think you don't because if you did you knew this was so annoying that you'd have restored it since then.

@T3STY@live.com please refrain from posting non-constructive comments. Your point of view is well heard and has been thoroughly explained in previous comments (please read the entire comments thread before posting).

@nautilus maintainers: You should really be addressing this issue, no offense. Let's sum up all the concerns here. 
 * We want to prevent accidental file trashing (aka cat-on-keyboard)
 * We don't want an annoying popup dialog when trashing files.
 * We want to be consistent about keyboard shortcuts with other apps/DEs
 * We want to make permanently deleting files somewhat harder

Here is my proposal:
 * Consistency, preventing accidental deletion: Restore Del as the default delete shortcut. Revert to a popup until something like https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=214251 is properly implemented. Once it's implemented, keep del as the default shortcut, use the "ribbon" or whatever to remind of trashed files, get rid of the popup dialog.
 * No popup: Implement https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=214251, maybe keep Ctrl+Del to trash files if you really want this.
 * Make permanent del harder: keep Shift+Del and the popup (current behavior) - note: as explained before, users including myself are more prone to hit Shift+Del since the change to Ctrl+Del.

I think we'd all like your opinion on this, thanks

Side note: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=628447 shows a corner case where Ctrl+Del is helpful (del key very close to the Enter key on the user's keyboard). Again, this is a corner case, and the user is happy with reconfiguring Del to Ctrl+Del by himself.

@nodiscc - As the major DEs use Shift+Delete to delete a file bypassing the trash bin, that should be used instead of Ctrl+Delete for that purpose.

However, agreed that Delete should move the file to the trash bin.

I just updated to Fedora 18, which includes Nautilus 3.6.3 and noticed this bug is still present. However, F18 includes the newer GNOME desktop called Cinnamon, which I tried out and the Delete key works as intended, so that makes a good work-around for this bug (Cinnamon also fixes almost all my other complaints with the default GNOME desktop, plus you can have both the default desktop and Cinnamon installed and switch between them when you login. Installing it was as simple as typing yum groupinstall "Cinnamon Desktop")

@nodiscc: You're wrong and as same as me the developers here didn't hear to anyone else reporting this combination is useless and more dangerous. This issue has been reported since April 26th 2011, and we're now January 29th, 2013 - more than a year! Either the developers can't read or they chosen to ignore us. I guess the second, but.. anyway...

For those who want the delete key back in Nautilus 3:
there is an accelerators table file in $HOME/.config/nautilus/accels, open it in gedit, uncomment the line refering to <Actions>/DirViewAction/Trash, and then modifiy the key value to only "Delete". Or, if you want to use the terminal, use this:

echo "(gtk_accel_path \"<Actions>/DirViewActions/Trash\" \"Delete\")" >> "$HOME/.config/nautilus/accels"


Have a good day nautilus developers... I hope one day you'll find out there is a trash, and you'll finally start using it instead of keeping it for beauty.

I propose marking this as duplicate of bug 628447. ? The desired solution seems to be the same: a notification about deleted items and with an "Undo" button.

Oops, didn't realize that bug 628447 was marked as FIXED.

I'm sorry for the noise.

*** Bug 702861 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

@T3STY: I don't think bashing the maintainers is the right attitude. As a side note, editing the accels file (which was originally not present on my machine) as you explained did not change the Del key behavior. Can someone confirm this workaround actually works?

Also, pinging the maintainers on this issue. What's planned? If you read my previous comment, I think there are some valid points that need to be addressed. If a workaround exists (as suggested by T3STY), please let us know, so that distro maintainers are able to set a sensible default instead of uselessly patching/forking nautilus.

Thanks

Why was this a big deal in the first place?  As others have said... we *do* have the trash can already to prevent users from erasing things they shouldn't.

If someone:

 1) accidentally hits the delete key
 2) accidentally says yes ti a dialog
 3) accidentally empties their trash can.

They deserve to have their files erased.

Can we include joss@debian.org and cosimoc@gnome.org in the cc list?


It's odd that the only real blocking people of these changes aren't included in the conversation.

Also.. it seems the ctl+delete solution came from a user in 628447. Should we be taking design advice from someone who accidentally deletes files by mashing the delete key?

It would make sense to have the Ctrl+Delete as an option, off by default.

It should be off by default, because everyone in the computer field — except those using the new Gnome with Linux — uses Delete to delete, from letters to words to records to spreadsheet cells, and more.

It's confusing. Alexander, the user in 628447 didn't request the change. He just realized that had changed when he updated to 3.6 and was satisfied with it. He also admitted he wouldn't have minded changing the shortcut himself (through key accels), so he was fine with Del-only by default.

> someone who accidentally deletes files by mashing the delete key?
The previous "Del = go to Trash" behavior certainly prevented that. Now Ctrl+Del and Shift+Del are both 2 keystrokes away. I regularly confuse these two. A friend of mine for who I set up Debian just did that with a music folder. The consistency argument Paddy just recalled is very valid too.

We really need maintainer input on this, what's the plan?

(In reply to comment #79)
> It's confusing. Alexander, the user in 628447 didn't request the change. He
> just realized that had changed when he updated to 3.6 and was satisfied with
> it. He also admitted he wouldn't have minded changing the shortcut himself
> (through key accels), so he was fine with Del-only by default.

Ah. Fair enough, point withdrawn

> We really need maintainer input on this, what's the plan?

+1.

It seems like enough users are up in arms about this to at least give it a second look.

(In reply to comment #41)
> This bug already has the 'ui-review' keyword...
> I haven't received any input on this particular issue recently, but last time I
> talked about it with a designer he agreed with the choice that was made.

I don't think this bug is getting less annoying with increasing age.

What is holding this up? After all, the proposal mayde by nodiscc in comment #57 and comment #67 seems to please everyone!

Cosimo, you seem to be the only Nautilus maintainer in CC: If somebody would implement the proposal, would a patch be accepted?

I hope this bug got fixed soon, its an realy annoying thing.

*** Bug 702861 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

+1!

I'd never discover Ctrl+Delete by myself.
I've run immediately to this bug tracker to report the Delete key was broken in Nautilus only to discover the counter-intuitiveness is intentional. o.O

Please implement Delete key to move selected file(s) to the trash can and a notification to offer Undo functionality as suggested. Everyone will thank you, new and old users.

The latest version of Gnome actually shows a confirm dialog while pressing  ctl+delete.. however delete on it's own still doesn't work as expected.

As there is a dialog now, whats the point of the control? It's just confusing for 90% of the users out there (that includes power users)

(In reply to comment #85)
> As there is a dialog now, whats the point of the control?

Is there a dialog now? (Sorry, I'm still stuck with the Debian/wheezy version of Gnome 3.4 for the moment.) The raison d'être for the silly solution with ctrl-del was that a dialog was considered too disruptive!

I really cannot understand why the solution proposed by nodiscc is neither accepted, nor commented on, not even when people step up and propose to offer a patch.

Created attachment 264741 [details]
screenshot of delete dialog in 3.10.2

See attached.  3.10.1 on Arch Linux.

But this is exactly the disruptive dialog that nobody wanted and that was used as an argument for the ctrl-del! I do not think there is much point arguing which one is worse. (To be sure: having to ctrl-del and fence off a distracting dialog is just going to annoy everybody.)

Who designs this? Where are the people who decide such topics? Why don't they listen to bug reports (as many wrote here and elsewhere) or great solutions (as nodiscc suggested above)?

But is this dialog only for permanent deletion?
If so, this is completely unrelated.

(In reply to comment #89)
> But is this dialog only for permanent deletion?
> If so, this is completely unrelated.

Indeed. The dialog in the attachment from comment 87 is for "Delete permanently" (shortcut 'Shift'+'Del'), not for "Move to Trash" which is the object of this bug report. It's an exceptional situation where a confirmation dialog cannot be avoided.

For "Move to Trash", a transient, in-app notification with an "Undo" button is the way to go. Such notifications are already used in other applications (such as Contacts and Boxes); and they are also implicit in current nautilus design mockups[*].

90 comments can only take us so far. I'm sure patches will be welcome.

Forgot to add the reference to the previous comment:

[*] http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/nautilus-next/#comment-8053

So 'Shift+Del' is delete permanently, while ctl+delete is move to trash?

It would make a ton more sense and be easier to use if shift+delete was left as is (prompting the user to delete permanently) and delete prompted the user and then moved to trash.

(hell, then ctl+delete could move to the trash without prompting as it does now. That would leave the modifiers to the "power users" while not making the shortcuts confusing.)

(In reply to comment #92)
> So 'Shift+Del' is delete permanently, while ctl+delete is move to trash?

Yes. It's been this way since 3.2. (This has been stated a number of times in this bug report, so your question is a refreshing confirmation that this is indeed confusing.)

> It would make a ton more sense and be easier to use if shift+delete was left as
> is (prompting the user to delete permanently) and delete prompted the user and
> then moved to trash.

It is okay for 'delete permanently' to prompt. After all, the action is irreversible.

It is not okay for 'move to trash' to prompt. After all the action is reversible. The prompt is disruptive and leads to people getting customized to confirming everything.

The solution proposed by nodiscc above is optimal, because
* it is not disruptive,
* it makes the user aware of how to recover files that were (accidentally?) moved to trash,
* it avoids confusion with 'delete permanently' (ctrl-del and shift-del are too similar), and
* it makes people not wonder 'how do I delete "this"?'
Can we have this, please?

(By the way, the dialog 'are you sure you want to permanently delete "test"?' that you presented above has nothing to do with 3.10. It has been there since 3.2 at least.)

We have an accepted design pattern for dealing with delete operations in GNOME 3 applications: when an item is deleted, an in-app notification appears, with an undo button which allows the action to be reversed. This can be seen in Boxes or Contacts, for example. The approach is also consistent with the new Human Interface Guidelines, which recommends offering undo for destructive operations.

So, as was suggested originally, using undo for move to trash seems like a good approach - not just because it avoids confusion over the ctrl and shift modifiers, but also because it would be consistent with what we are doing elsewhere.

Marking this as a 3.16 target, as it has been a repeated cause of frustration.

Great!

Created attachment 295962 [details]
mockup

If we switch back to the Delete key on its own, we will need to provide a migration path for those who have got used to Ctrl+Del, and are expecting it to keep on working.

My personal view here is that, since Del is easier to use than Ctrl+Del, it is in everyone's interests to get everyone using the new shortcut rather than the current one.

One possible solution to this problem could therefore be to show a message dialog the first time someone tries Ctrl+Del, which would inform the user that the shortcut has changed. A rough mockup is attached.

Is there any reason Gnome can't allow two shortcut keys for the same function? I'm looking forward to finally getting a fix so the delete key works again but I don't think anyone would mind leaving the more obscure ctrl+del shortcut (assuming anyone actually wants or uses it).

(In reply to comment #97)
> Is there any reason Gnome can't allow two shortcut keys for the same function?
> I'm looking forward to finally getting a fix so the delete key works again but
> I don't think anyone would mind leaving the more obscure ctrl+del shortcut
> (assuming anyone actually wants or uses it).

Technically there is no reason why we can't keep the old shortcut around also, and there are other cases where we do this. However, since the new one is superior, my view is to try and migrate users to The Better Way. Otherwise we'll just have people using the old fiddly shortcut forever.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 743630 ***

Yippee!
Thank you, Carlos.