GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 683048
Remove extra pane introduces a regression
Last modified: 2014-03-11 23:27:17 UTC
Bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676858 removes the F3 extra pane functionality, because the shell can tile two nautilus windows side by side. This is nice, and I like this idea, however it is obvious to me that: * The F3 menu item itself should *NOT* be removed, instead, pressing it should spawn a new nautilus window and cause the shell to tile the two. * Similarly if two nautilus windows are open and already tiled, pressing F3 in one should close the other * This is the same behaviour as the dual pane feature being removed in the above bug. * Similarly, the move to other pane menu items can remain, and be visible when two nautilus windows are "tiled" together in the shell. Please take this seriously, as I think it's a good idea. Loosing the functionality we had with F3 is a regression. Thanks for your hard work! James
(In reply to comment #0) > * The F3 menu item itself should *NOT* be removed, instead, pressing it should > spawn a new nautilus window and cause the shell to tile the two. I think this needs to wait for bug 681004. > * Similarly, the move to other pane menu items can remain, and be visible when > two nautilus windows are "tiled" together in the shell. This is already available in another form. Folders open in other windows are added to the sidebar of the "Move to"/"Copy to" dialogs for quick access. See bug 679580.
(In reply to comment #1) > (In reply to comment #0) > > * The F3 menu item itself should *NOT* be removed, instead, pressing it should > > spawn a new nautilus window and cause the shell to tile the two. > > I think this needs to wait for bug 681004. Good find. This makes sense, I think. > > > * Similarly, the move to other pane menu items can remain, and be visible when > > two nautilus windows are "tiled" together in the shell. > > This is already available in another form. Folders open in other windows are > added to the sidebar of the "Move to"/"Copy to" dialogs for quick access. See > bug 679580. I agree, however it would be nice to have the special case of "use the other pane" so that we preserve the existing excellent F3 functionality. Thanks for your comment! I hope a nautilus dev likes this idea too, and makes this a priority for 3.6 if possible or 3.8 Maybe the F3 remove regression (676858) can wait until this bug is solved first?
Having this visual placement will not prevent the regression introduced by split pane removal. As already described in #676858, the point of the extra pane was to introduce a clear default target. I don't see either the visual arrangement, or possible Copy-To menu extensions being able to provide this.
(In reply to comment #0) > * This is the same behaviour as the dual pane feature being removed in the > above bug. Apart from the fact that it had enough bugs, e.g. I couldn't click into the Location bar to activate the inactive pane...
(In reply to comment #4) > Apart from the fact that it had enough bugs, This is not a fact. It's a claim, and it remains FUD until it's actually supported by facts. Repeating the claim over and over doesn't really help to make it a fact. I'm getting increasingly sick of this badmouthing. > e.g. I couldn't click into the > Location bar to activate the inactive pane... Wrong. When the the extra pane was introduced, you could do that. This functionality was later on broken during unrelated changes, and this regression was fixed later (so, in 3.4.0 it works again). See what I mean?
(In reply to comment #5) > I'm getting increasingly sick of this badmouthing. Likewise. It is time to cool it dude.
I'm not you "dude". And what do you mean by "cool it"? Is it "Stop correcting wrong claims"? Do you actually have to add something factual?
(In reply to comment #5) > (so, in 3.4.0 it works again). Not for me in Nautilus 3.4.2. Anyway.
We don't need another forum bug. I'm going to close this. There are separate items already open for additional enhancements.
(In reply to comment #9) > We don't need another forum bug. I'm going to close this. There are separate > items already open for additional enhancements. I'm sorry this led to certain people not getting along. Hopefully you can please reopen this. The goal was to highlight the elegant design that can be had when integrating gnome-shell and nautilus. It makes sense for the F3 in it's current incarnation to dissapear. It also makes sense for it re-appear as a way to tile a second nautilus window in gnome shell. Please reconsider this proposal on behalf of the users who love nautilus and gnome shell. Thank you, and please let me know if I can be of assistance in getting this done. I could make a mock up or some screenshots. James
(In reply to comment #7) > I'm not you "dude". And what do you mean by "cool it"? It means please calm a bit down. From what I can see, you wrote the extra pane support for Nautilus and was granted a git account. Pretty sure nobody knows this, so please don't take any comments so personal. Let's move on.
(In reply to comment #3) > Having this visual placement will not prevent the regression introduced by > split pane removal. As already described in #676858, the point of the extra > pane was to introduce a clear default target. I don't see either the visual > arrangement, or possible Copy-To menu extensions being able to provide this. (In reply to comment #11) From what I can see, you wrote the extra pane support for Nautilus and was granted a git account. Pretty sure nobody knows this, so please don't take any comments so personal. Let's move on. Hi Holger, From what Olav says, you're the author of the split pane support for nautilus. Assuming this is true: 1) Firstly, I'd like to thank you, because I really enjoy this feature. 2) Secondly, while it has taken me a while to get used to gnome3 and the gnome-shell, I'm starting to like it, but it still needs a little tuning :) 3) It is unfortunate that the current split pane (F3) code is going to get removed before a suitable alternative is in place, however, I do think it does need a tweak to fit in nicely with the gnome-shell. Maybe we can change this, and maybe we can't, but let's look to the future, because we're developers, and that's what we like to do. So, I ask you: Let's have a technical discussion about how to get your awesome feature back in and up to date. I would like to hear from your expertise if you like my original proposal about having F3 tile the second nautilus window in the gnome-shell split pane "mode". If you do, hopefully much or some of your original code can still be used, and hopefully you can help get this working. If we can agree on this design (or maybe you can suggest some changes) maybe we can reopen this bug as a pending feature. I would probably be pretty pissed if a big patch that I wrote got kicked out, but hopefully we can salvage it and prove that gnome3 has the most elegant split screen mode ever. (let's make vim and screen devs jealous) I look forward to discussing with you, and thank you to Olav for pointing this out. Sorry for wordiness, Thank you, James
(In reply to comment #12) > I would like to hear from your expertise if you > like my original proposal about having F3 tile the second nautilus window in > the gnome-shell split pane "mode". The GNOME Shell doesn't have a split pane mode. It has window snapping, which is a form of "tiling light". It concerns window placement, and doesn't offer (or even try to offer) the semantic connection between the two sides that is the whole point of the feature. And currently, I am not seeing how that could be brought back, because it would basically mean that either the application needs to change behavior based on the arrangement of its window in combination to the arrangement of other windows, or that application-specific context information and triggers would need to be piped through the window manager - both of which sounds non-standard and inconsistent. Maybe somebody will come up with a good design for this, but I haven't seen that so far. Your original proposal is also trying to address accessibility and visual problems. Indeed, this is also an area where window snapping falls behind. It's a really cool and useful feature, but just not made for file management. There's bug 681004 which aims at something remotely similar (more general than your proposal, but less quick, and only covers the "how-to-get" part, but not the "how-to-get-rid-of-it-again"). Note that design is mostly lacking as of now. The way to go seems to be to use a set of heuristics, and get closer to a tiling window manager (but don't really tile). And even if this was implemented, there are still enough visual issues left (e.g. only full screen, duplicated chrome, cumbersome context switches). Long story short: I think you'll either just have to go somewhere else for dual pane file management, or support steps as in bug 681004 if you feel it comes close enough to your target usecase. Sorry that I'm not able to be more helpful. If you want to discuss further nevertheless feel free to email me or try your luck on the Nautilus / GNOME Shell mailing lists.
*** Bug 696880 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Top questions in Ubuntu Stack Exchange site: * Is there a way to restore Nautilus' split screen (F3) feature? http://askubuntu.com/questions/285588/is-there-a-way-to-restore-nautilus-split-screen-f3-feature * How can I downgrade to an older version of Nautilus? http://askubuntu.com/questions/286056/how-can-i-downgrade-to-an-older-version-of-nautilus And this has been repeteadly reported at launchpad. Users *need* this feature. It's really sad that GNOME doesn't want to see that fact.
I was about to submit a duplicate report before I found this. At the moment I snap two windows and it works well. It is easy to distinguish which window is active/focused (which was previously difficult from what I can recall). I believe it is a valuable method of managing files, especially on touch devices, because there is no need for context menus, you can simply drag. I lack the technical understanding, but if F3 (or Extra Pane entry below New Window) is pressed, current window snaps to left, new window opens and snaps to right. Maybe this is possible with scripting, but I have never done this before.
(In reply to comment #16) > I lack the technical understanding, but if F3 (or Extra Pane entry below New > Window) is pressed, current window snaps to left, new window opens and snaps to > right. Maybe this is possible with scripting, but I have never done this > before. Hi, Michael. You may want to follow bug 681004. It is a prerequisite for making that possible.
After upgrading to 13.04 I ran into the same issue and couldn't believe that the side-pane was removed intentionally. There is a lot of rumour on that, by many people at various forums, blogs, launchpad, etc. *Please* bring it back! Pro-Reasons are: 1. the second pane definitely makes file operations *much* easier and *intuitive*, since it provides a clear target for the file operation, and it always appears at the expected static position. Indeed, this is the most fundamental reason why two-sided-file-managers (as all the '*-commanders') are superior to single-window-file-manager (like in Windows/Mac) which are rarely more than a simple directory listing. Some weeks ago I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on the laptop of a colleague that was new to Linux. When I showed him the F3-side-pane feature he got totally excited, since he immediately recognized how useful this is. 2. don't solely consider the touch-panel-users. There is a large group of advanced users that are first of all *keyboard-users*, because using the keyboard is for several tasks much more efficient than the mouse or a touchpad. Please don't leave them behind in future development! Indeed, it would be very helpful to *extent* the keyboard capabilities in nautilus in three points: a) switch focus over to the other pane by some key combination (like TAB in a commander) b) add/remove the currently active entry to the current selection of that side by pressing some key combination (same behaviour as CTRL-LeftClick, like pressing SPACE in a commander) and c) copy or move selected entries to the other pane (like F5 and F6 in a commander) 3. although this might be different for the touch-pad-experience, multi-window-arrangements will *never* be as comfortable and intuitive to desktop-users as a single-window with semantical clear subtiling. This is proven by decades of window-arrangement-capabilities (stick to monitor halves did already exist in Windows 3.1). For example, tabbed browsing is superior to multiple window browsing. And any programming IDE like eclipse would be unusable with the multi-window-concept of gimp. 4. bring back the peace to the numerous irritated and annoyed people. Nautilus is a wonderful program, especially its system integration, e.g., for network resources. There is no two-sided-file-manager integrated into Ubuntu such nicely, which is a strong reason to switch to nautilus even for two-sided-file-manager-fans. The 'simple' F3-functionality was a wonderful gift to them. Removing this functionality really hurts like cutting off virtual hands: frequent work-flow is now more complicated again, and there is no two-sided alternative. So *please* re-introduce the second pane (probably even with enriched keyboard functionality) into nautilus! As a compromise, one could provide this as an optional package (similar to nautilus-open-terminal).
Mentioning these because they should still work with variants that retained the extra pane (e.g. Nemo): (In reply to comment #18) > Indeed, it would be very > helpful to *extent* the keyboard capabilities in nautilus in three points: a) > switch focus over to the other pane by some key combination (like TAB in a > commander) Originally, it was TAB, but it has been changed to F6, for consistency reasons (that's the default GTK+ shortcut for switching panes of a GtkVPaned IIRC). > c) copy or move selected entries to the > other pane (like F5 and F6 in a commander) There are menu items for copy and move to the other pane, to which you can assign keyboard shortcuts the usual GTK+/GNOME style (adjusting can-change-accels dconf entry). So, the classic F5 for copying is doable, F6 for moving unfortunately conflicts with above setting.
*** Bug 723810 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Why is gedit then implementing "split views" as "tab groups"? GEdit devs has gone rogue, it's an abomination to gnome to have split views, which make copy pasting and drag and drop easier without multiple windows. What's wrong with gedit developers, Don't they know that dnd is not good for users. DnD is just for Mac and Windows users. And for Lusers there's always copy and paste (forget middle click pasting that was for pre historic people). http://worldofgnome.org/gedit-keeps-going-going-more-dnd-improvements/ BTW, this is not a bug, it is a feature removal, which most humans with computers use. What category does a feature removal comes in? "LUSER"? The disadvantage of multiple windows to drag and drop is that all Linux window managers can't do drag-n-drop from a maximized window to a smaller window. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjd6xoAG36Q The solution is simple, give focus to the new window only on mouse button release not on mouse button press. Who cares? DnD is a big failure in Linux desktops, hence we need split views, window snapping, and now tab groups. Maybe nobody uses dnd to drag and drop text and files around that much, or gave enough thought about it.