Ubuntu 11.10. Nautilus new design

for suggestions such as this, please use brainstorm.ubuntu.com.

seeing that it is only a person preference, the developers may not make the changes you suggest.

"where is the menu for changing the view contents of a directory?"

Where it's always been--in the menu bar. Move your mouse pointer up to the top of the screen and the menu bar appears, then you can change the way the contents of a directory are viewed in the View menu. You can also get to this menu by pressing Alt+V.

"Where it's always been--in the menu bar. Move your mouse pointer up to the top of the screen and the menu bar appears, then you can change the way the contents of a directory are viewed in the View menu. You can also get to this menu by pressing Alt+V."

Well, I figure it out, who will explain such trifles to a man, who uses Ubuntu for the first time?

"for suggestions such as this, please use brainstorm.ubuntu.com."
OK.

"seeing that it is only a person preference, the developers may not make the changes you suggest."
Developers should done it. How simple user will add the "Up" button on the Nautilus panel?

I believe that the frequently used controls should be visible immediately.

"Well, I figure it out, who will explain such trifles to a man, who uses Ubuntu for the first time?"

Menu bars work the same in all applications, so Ubuntu users have to figure this out in order to use most programs. If people are having trouble with indicator-appmenu, that's a problem, but it's not a problem specifically related to Nautilus.

"I believe that the frequently used controls should be visible immediately."

Can you provide evidence to support the idea that an Up button is really a frequently used control by most Nautilus or Ubuntu users? (Or even that up buttons are commonly used at all, in file browsers generally, except when back buttons are less accessible?)

Do people really need the Up button? Would most users mind if it is not there?

If you have manually navigated down into a folder hierarchy, the back button will bring you back up just fine. Furthermore, near the top of the Nautilus window, the current folder's parent is a button (as is its parent, and its parent's parent, and so forth), so clicking that is equivalent to clicking an Up button. If you have followed a shortcut deep into a folder hierarchy, then the back button won't bring you up the hierarchy stepwise...but if you have followed a shortcut deep into a folder hierarchy, you'll probably want to look and see *which* containing folder you want to go to (parent, grandparent, ...), and while looking, you can just click on that folder.

In my experience, up buttons in file browsers are primarily good for clicking many times in quick succession, to move quickly up the folder hierarchy. Compared simply to clicking whichever folder you want (parent folder, grandparent folder, ...), this is an extremely inefficient method of getting where you want to be. Inefficiency is bad for a number of reasons but one of them is that users engaging in more repetitive actions are at an elevated risk of developing repetitive stress injury, such as carpal tunnel syndrome (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_stress_injury, and the admittedly not very thorough citations therein).

In conclusion, I am not convinced that the up button is a frequently used control, but suppose it is: If it is, then as I have demonstrated above, it is redundant, and perhaps it is only frequently used because users are accustomed to poorly designed interfaces that are so severely lacking in more efficient controls so as to force users to use an Up button.

I'm not saying that using or wanting an up button is bad. Different people have different needs, so even if my reasoning above is good, it still may not take all users needs or preferences into account. If users want an up button, then it should certainly remain available; if *most* users want the up button to be present by default, then it should be present by default.

In any case, please feel free to continue posting your thoughts on this matter in this question, but Marcus Aurelius is right--for broad discussion and real progress to made on this, it should really be discussed at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com.

If you want, you could also file a bug as a feature request for the Up button to be present in Nautilus windows by default. If you do that (or report any other bugs in Ubuntu), then you should make sure to read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs carefully first if you haven't already, and also to search first to see if such a feature request has already been filed as a bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bugs). If you file a bug and post on Brainstorm, then you should post a link to the bug in the Brainstorm page, and a link to the Brainstorm page in the bug report. (If you file a bug, you can also link it to this question with "Link existing bug" on this question page.)

OK, may be Up button is unneeded.
But why Back and Forward buttons located on the right?
Who decided what it will useful and comfortable?

Since Windows 95, when I started using PC, such buttons has been located on the left everywhere.
Now in all Internet browsers Back and Forward buttons are located on the left, everybody accustomed to this.
Why create unnecessary discomfort to users?

Would be more correct to place the buttons on the left.

Sergei I totally support you. The back/forward navigation buttons are misplaced.
Having the sidebar on the left and all navigation stuff too and putting these buttons on the right seems like a total broken design.

I demand changes or at least provide an option to place them on my own.

@Sebu: demand changes must be posted at brainstorm.ubuntu.com

Eliah Kagan's reply has all the arrogance of a true Whinedows weenie!

Microslop introduced massive changes to Whinedows to prevent Linux from taking its market share but Ubuntu doesn't have that excuse. Vista was a failure partly because it DIDN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT ITS USERS EXPECTATIONS!!! When Vista and 2007 came out, the most common question I saw on the web was "how can I make this look like XP/2003?"

Massive changes like Unity do more harm to the Linux community than Microslop ever could. It may be wonderful in 10 years, when it's all anyone remembers. Now, the common questions are "where's the close/minimize button gone?", "where's the up button gone?" or "how can I copy that folder path into a document?".

An arrogant answer like "it's not needed" doesn't help. If a feature was there before and is missed, it was obviously being used. And Sergei, "Where it's always been" is almost as bad. Moving the title bar to the top of the screen is not an intuitive change. IT"S NO LONGER WITH THE WINDOW IT BELONGS TO! Remember; user expectations!

My question is now - How can I make Ubuntu 11.10 look like the Ubuntu 10.04 I'm familiar with, what I expect to see and use. The ability to alter the Ubuntu skin back to the normal and expected would be invaluable. If the new features truly are better, users will abandon the old format in favor of the new. Just removing them smacks of Microslop's arrogance.

My advice? Keep the old code around. You may need it. Maybe 11.10 is Ubuntu's Vista. Arrogance is never pretty.

How can I make Ubuntu 11.10 look like the Ubuntu 10.04 I'm familiar with
You can't!
You can try other flavors of official Ubuntu like Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu. Kubuntu should be the one closest to XP.
Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, keep the Gnome 2 interface (the classical Ubuntu GUI).
It's true it's hard to move to new interface, as you need to adapt yourself.
For answerer people of forum, we could request more usage of terminal to requester, as the menu sequences are not available...

You *can* make Ubuntu 11.10 look very much like Ubuntu 10.04. Install gnome-session-fallback and choose GNOME Fallback as your session type on the login screen (click the button that looks like a gear). It is not exactly the same, but it is quite similar.

@Stephen D Metcalfe
I think the above answers your question, but if it does not or there are other questions about how to do something that you want answered, please let us know.

"Eliah Kagan's reply has all the arrogance of a true Whinedows weenie!"

I feel a bit sad that you are personally attacking me and making unsupported claims about my character. You do not seem to have advanced a criticism of anything I have *actually* said, but I think that you have associated some ideas and attitudes with me that I have not said and that I have never advanced. However, in spite of my sadness, I'm going to assume throughout the remainder of this post that you might be on to something, and that I might have done something that actually warrants criticism.

I'm sure you'll find this question arrogant, but I'll ask it anyway. And it is not entirely rhetorical--please feel welcome to answer, as you may have a good reason, and one that sheds light on a problem with Ubuntu. If you didn't want changes, why did you switch to a new release of Ubuntu when the release you were using was still fully supported?

You see, one difference between Ubuntu and operating systems like Windows is that in Ubuntu, we try very, *very* hard not to change the interface (including the interface of *any* included application) *within* a release via updates. But when a new release comes out, it is expected that major changes will be introduced. That is the point of a new release. That is the point of Ubuntu's 6-month release cycle, and the point of LTS releases is to enable you to avoid changes if you don't want them. Eventually Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will no longer be supported and then in GNOME Fallback in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is insufficiently similar to the interface from 10.04 LTS, then something like this issue will arise again.

'Now, the common questions are "where's the close/minimize button gone?", "where's the up button gone?" or "how can I copy that folder path into a document?".'

I assume you're referring to those questions but not actually asking them (which makes sense and is consistent with the reasonable point you're making, i.e., the point lurking somewhere behind all the angry name-calling). But if you want those questions answered, please make that clear, and I (or whoever else sees your post first and knows the answer) will answer them.

'An arrogant answer like "it's not needed" doesn't help.'

Well, then it's rather nice that I never actually said that, isn't it?

More to the point though, I think that I have never replied to someone asking how to do something with the new interface by telling them that it is not needed. If you think I am mistaken in saying this, and that I have ever said such a thing, please cite a specific instance--perhaps an apology is in order on my part.

What I have done is to respond to people arguing along the lines of "X is a bug because you cannot do A" by saying things like "A is unnecessary due to P." That is not an arrogant response to a request for technical support, because it is not a response to a request for technical support at all. That is me participating in a discussion about whether or not something is a bug, and in that sort of discussion, arguments like "the requested feature is not needed" are not arrogant, but are instead (when supported by reasoned arguments and evidence) highly constructive.

Perhaps you have confused a discussion of how an interface *should* be designed with a request for support using an interface. To see the distinction between the two, please consider the first and third paragraphs of the original question description in this thread, and the sharply differing ways in which I replied to each. Or perhaps you are right, and somewhere (but not in this thread, I don't think), *I* have made that mistake, and responded to a request for practical use advice as though it were an argument about a bug. If I have made this mistake, please tell me (and please be specific), so that if I come to agree that I have done so, I can correct it as best as possible, or at least apologize.

By the way, your post seems to be based on the assumption that the central defining principle of our community is hating and loathing Microsoft. When you wanted to insult me, you associated me with Windows. When you wanted to show how Oneiric is bad, you compared it to Windows, even though your comparison does not support your argument (consider that Natty introduced features that are refined in Oneiric, and Windows Vista--which was not very successful--introduced features that are refined in Windows 7--which *has* been highly successful....and you are trying to argue that *Oneiric* is flawed). While most people in the Ubuntu community have at least some problems with or objections to Microsoft and Windows (most people in Windows user communities probably do too), I would suggest that you're not going to get very far in your criticism of any free open source software if your criticism's normative claims are based solely on assumed shared hatred of that particular company and that particular family of operating systems. ("A is bad" does not follow from "X is bad" & "X does A".)

"If the new features truly are better, users will abandon the old format in favor of the new."

Which of two interfaces is better varies from user to user and is highly subjective--in some senses of "better", what you are saying is trivially fulfilled or even tautological. In others, it does not seem so well supported. But in any case, I agree that users' interfaces should not be changed against their will. Instead, new interfaces should be rolled out in new releases of an operating system, which users are not compelled to install because older releases remain supported for an extended time. Users of the new releases can test and help refine the newer interfaces, before they become more widely adopted.

However, developers cannot practically keep supporting all interfaces that people have ever wanted to use. If there is not enough community developer support for an old interface, it will stop being supported. You seem to be arguing that developers should do twice as much work as they did before, and for an extended time (forever?), in order for users to have more choice. Well, I think many people would consider me arrogant for this, but yeah, I agree--that does actually sound like a pretty good trade-off. The problem is that these sorts of developer resources frequently do not exist.

That does not mean that everything has been done well in Oneiric. A number of users are complaining that they cannot get an interface that looks like Ubuntu Classic (the traditional GNOME 2 interface that was available until Ubuntu 11.10). Since such an interface (gnome-session-fallback) is present and easily installable in Ubuntu 11.10, this dissatisfaction means one (or both) of two things:

(1) gnome-session-fallback is, for some reason, not an adequate substitute for Ubuntu Classic. Since gnome-session-fallback has upstream support, it should be possible to provide a customized version while only requiring additional developer resources for the customizations to make it sufficiently similar to Ubuntu Classic. It seems that this could be provided by the community.

(2) It is not sufficiently publicized that gnome-session-fallback exists. I suspect that this (and not #1) is the problem, and perhaps it ought to have been publicized in the Unity interface itself, as well as via other means.

Finally, I again emphasize that, for progress to be made based on what is discussed here, it should also be discussed on http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com. It would be helpful, if also posting there, to post links to the topic(s) here that are relevant to the issues discussed here.

@Stephen D Metcalfe
I wanted to make this separate so that it is more visible, since it involves another person's reputation. Sergei Solo asked, "where is the menu for changing the view contents of a directory?" I said, "Where it's always been--in the menu bar." (Then I immediately said some other stuff, but I'll get to that later.)

In your post (#8 as numbered at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+question/167154), you criticized Sergei Solo for saying, "Where it's always been". He did not say that. I said that. That text only appeared in his post to quote me, and it was an unambiguous quote--it was enclosed in quotation marks and separated from his own words. This post is to set the record straight about that. It's bad enough that you've attacked me personally and resorted to petty name calling, but at least that was intentional--I see no reason for Sergei Solo to become the brunt of your scolding by mere accident.

But while I'm setting the record straight, I'll also explain why that answer is completely reasonable and why it is, or at least I thought it was, helpful. (You took it out of context, which perhaps makes it sound arrogant, but it was not.) Sergei Solo asked me where the menu was that provided certain functionality. Not all menus in all applications are in menu bars. This one had always been in the menu bar, and it still was in the menu bar, so I said that it was in the menu bar, where it had been before. I did realize that perhaps Sergei Solo's problem was that he was having trouble finding the menu bar, which is why I then *immediately* provided detailed instructions for accessing an application's menu bar in Unity!

Just wanted to say that I'm one of those users that tend to use often the up button and misses it sourly in Ubuntu 11.10.
 I have a dozen or so bookmarks which I rely heavily on. Many times after clicking a bookmark I might want to visit a parent/grandparent directory - and there's simply no quick way to do so.
It would have been great if clicking on any directory that is shown in the location bar, would have taken you there (such feature has been implemented years ago in the popular windows file manager servant salamander). Having such functionality would have really eliminated the need for an up button.

Yes, please do include the "Up|" button. I neeeeeed it.

Time to eat some crow (and publicly admit my own arrogance). My apologies to Elia Kagan for misinterpreting his post and my comments about both him and Sergei.
I am currently working on a new project that requires long term stability, probably longer than 10.04 LTE is likely to be maintained, so I have no choice in upgrading to 11.10. It is the precursor to 12.04, the LTE release due next year, and that should be available about the time my project is due for delivery. By not upgrading now, I risk potential delays if there are too many differences between 10.04 and 12.04.
Like many people using Ubuntu, an operating system is a tool, and frequent use creates expectations. Working with multiple operating systems is difficult enough that unexpected changes create a lot of frustration and that was at the heart of my tirade. The common theme in this thread is that unexpected changes are often unwelcome at the time they are made, even if they will ultimately make our lives easier. By not providing the same old familiar environment, Ubuntu 11.xx has caught a significant amount of flak, I expect mainly from users like myself who spend their time on things other than the platform itself and are often too focused to follow the latest development efforts.
Being a software engineer, I understand that maintaining backwards "compatibility" is a pain, and can lead to significant cost and effort. Often, though, it is required to keep customers happy. The underlying functionality can change but long time users remain content and productive while new users become familiar with the new features. If the new features truly are an advantage, even stick-in-the-muds are eventually seduced away from the dark side and the older interface can then be phased out over time. From Elia's calm and reasoned response to my frustrated tirade, this is what gnome-session-fallback is intended to achieve. It isn't exactly the same as the old classical Gnome experience but probably good enough for government work.
My thanks to all the engineers who do spend their days developing Ubuntu. Without their efforts, we stick-in-the-muds would have nothing to be grumpy about. I will attempt to restrain any frustrations I have in the future and read posts thoroughly before making such a comment again, and I will post my suggestions on brainstorm.ubuntu.com.
Again, my thanks to all the engineers working on Ubuntu.

PS. That is 10.04 LTS and 12.04 LTS (if I had re read the posts as thoroughly as I had promissed. Sigh).

The up-button is a very important component of navigating directory hierarchy. Please bring it back. Some people may have taken it for granted and figured there are a number of workarounds. But nothing beats having this convenience convenient.

The back button is a nice feature also. However, it doesn't duplicate the convenience of the up-button. They are both important and crucial features.

@Eliah Kagan:
"If you have manually navigated down into a folder hierarchy, the back button will bring you back up just fine. Furthermore, near the top of the Nautilus window, "

If I have navigated somewhere, it's a burden to have to remember which direction I had came and hit the back button which might take me to somewhere I had slipped to by having clicked something in the side bar to get there. Hitting the up-button will allow me to know certainly that I'm progressing up a level.

".but if you have followed a shortcut deep into a folder hierarchy, you'll probably want to look and see *which* containing folder you want to go to (parent, grandparent, ...), and while looking, you can just click on that folder."

The developers appear to be moving a lot of conveniences of allowing the computer to do a lot of work for us. We have try to remember how we got there and then proceed accordingly. We know we simply want to go up a level. But we now have to search the title bar if we clicked a short cut, or the back button if we dug to get there.

The up button is as natural as the "../" is in a terminal window.

I can mention many reasons why the up button is very important and a naturally expected component of folder/directory navigating.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
<email address hidden>
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

Thank you

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 3:21 PM, apollothethird <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Question #167154 on nautilus in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+question/167154
>
> apollothethird proposed the following answer:
> The up-button is a very important component of navigating directory
> hierarchy. Please bring it back. Some people may have taken it for
> granted and figured there are a number of workarounds. But nothing
> beats having this convenience convenient.
>
> The back button is a nice feature also. However, it doesn't duplicate
> the convenience of the up-button. They are both important and crucial
> features.
>
> @Eliah Kagan:
> "If you have manually navigated down into a folder hierarchy, the back
> button will bring you back up just fine. Furthermore, near the top of the
> Nautilus window, "
>
> If I have navigated somewhere, it's a burden to have to remember which
> direction I had came and hit the back button which might take me to
> somewhere I had slipped to by having clicked something in the side bar
> to get there. Hitting the up-button will allow me to know certainly
> that I'm progressing up a level.
>
> ".but if you have followed a shortcut deep into a folder hierarchy,
> you'll probably want to look and see *which* containing folder you want
> to go to (parent, grandparent, ...), and while looking, you can just
> click on that folder."
>
> The developers appear to be moving a lot of conveniences of allowing the
> computer to do a lot of work for us. We have try to remember how we got
> there and then proceed accordingly. We know we simply want to go up a
> level. But we now have to search the title bar if we clicked a short
> cut, or the back button if we dug to get there.
>
> The up button is as natural as the "../" is in a terminal window.
>
> I can mention many reasons why the up button is very important and a
> naturally expected component of folder/directory navigating.
>
> -- L. James
>
> --
> L. D. James
> <email address hidden>
> www.apollo3.com/~ljames
>
> You received this question notification because you are an answer
> contact for nautilus in Ubuntu.
>

"Do people really need the Up button? Would most users mind if it is not there?"

Yes, people want it. Bug reports here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=662243
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/885592
Would be great to show support for this feature request.

I've made a patch that adds an up button to nautilus:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1904510

I recognise that this is an old thread, but feel I have something to add. I frequently use ctrl+l to display the address bar, so that I can cut and paste it into the terminal. There is no way then for me to go "up" levels in Nautilus, without the up button, so I end up selecting and deleting parts of the address.

An "up button" would surely be quicker.

The missing up a level button has seriously retarded Nautilus. I tried to stop using it and use a different file browser, however it's too ingrained into the Ubuntu OS.

I hope the Ubuntu developers will recognize this and get them to fix it or engrave a different file browser that has this important functionality.

The work arounds like the one you mentioned is a serious distraction that interrupts the work flow.