Browser: tree view rendering problem

[Trouilliez vincent]

When I use Nautilus in "Browser" mode, and I explore the "tree" structure with
the mouse, I found an annoying thing, see screenshot.
Folder have a little "arrow" widget on their left, that you can click to
"unfold" them and reveal subfolders. That's fine.
The problem is that you get this arrow even for folders that do NOT have
sub-folders, so it's basically lying to you, and you can't use/rely on the
presence of the arrow widget to quickly/visually see whether a folder has or
hans't a subfolder.
Then it gets even worse : when you click on the arrow of a folder that's
"supposed" to have subfolders, but hasn't any, it redraws the tree struture any,
as if there were subfolders, and writes "(Empty)", eventhough the folder has
files in them, as per my example in the screenshot.

All this should be gotten rid of. When a folder has no subfolder in it, Nautilus
shouldn't put an arrow widget next to it, to start with. Consequently, this will
also avoid the "Empty" ghost folder, killing two birds with one stone...

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85141: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85141

[Trouilliez vincent (vincent-trouilliez-modulonet)]

Created an attachment (id=2936)
Madness

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

that's a known bug upstream not easy to change, you can read this discussion
about it: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2005-June/msg00021.html

[Wladston Viana (wladston)]

Sebastian,

I have read the discussion.

I think this issue DO matter. It's not that it can be confusing - it just could be made better and more good looking

Why not simply don't render the little triangle on the folders that doesn't contain any subfolder ?

It's more natural, and the user doesn't need to click the arrow to find out that a folder has no subfolders - just the lack of the triangle would tell it.

If the objective is to signal to the user that the folder is empty, one could just write next to it (empty folder) in italics, or place a special open-and-empty folder.

Please, tell me what you think.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

We have thousand of desktop bugs open at the moment, this one is low importance

[Spuerhund (spuerhund)]

I agree with Wladston that this triangle is a serious issue. It impacts usability, because it pretends that there is some content even for folders which are not empty. Even if this misleading "empty" string is not so easy to fix because of the "show only folders" option - it should be possible to remove this triangle in the view in front of folders which do not have any content at all. Next improvement would be to hide it as well when the folder has no subfolders and the "show only folders" option is enabled.

[Data (ubuntuaddress)]

Bug #198135 is a duplicate of this one. Apparently the issue is still present in hardy alpha 5

[alfredo (alacis)]

I agree with everything that the initial poster said, and Spuerhund's comments, too.

I vote: "Yes" to fix.

[alfredo (alacis)]

Oh, by the way, KDE's Konqueror gets this right: see the attached snippet from a screenshot.

[VPablo (villumar)]

Yes, please, take an eye on this bug because is annoying.

[mclaud2000 (mclaud2000-deactivatedaccount)]

No really, this is serious, others of file managers have the right behaviour:

* Konqueror, was KDE default before being replaced with dolphin.
* Thunar, the default file manager in xfce.

* And everyone's favourite: Windows Explorer since Windows 95 and File Manager in Windows 3.1 and probably earlier.

(Those are the ones I've used. There are probably a lot more that have the right behaviour)

This is not a: "Well if you like that feature that much, just change your file manager". Other file managers that are default in other desktop environments can do this right, why the gnome default file manager can't?

PS: Well Dolphin, the new default KDE file manager does have the wrong behaviour of nautilus, shame on it.

[mclaud2000 (mclaud2000-deactivatedaccount)]

No really, this is serious, other file managers have the right behaviour:

* Konqueror, was KDE default before being replaced with dolphin.
* Thunar, the default file manager in xfce.

* And everyone's favourite: Windows Explorer since Windows 95 and File Manager in Windows 3.1 and probably earlier.

(Those are the ones I've used. There are probably other file managers that have the right behaviour)

This is not a: "Well if you like that feature that much, just change your file manager". Other file managers that are default in other desktop environments can do this right, why the gnome default file manager can't?

PS: Well Dolphin, the new default KDE file manager does have the wrong behaviour of nautilus, shame on it.

[owlstead (maarten-bodewes)]

Gods, this is assigned a LOW priority?

I've got a lot of cuss words ready to go for you Sebastian, I almost threw away a folder containing important files because I thought it was empty.

I thought Nautilus was pretending to be easy to use, nice clean interface not to scare away new users. Well, this bug alone shows how far you have to go to even pretend to compete.

[Topher (hunt-topher)]

I can't help observing that comments like the previous one probably don't do much to promote a community where perspectives and needs are respectfully discussed, as they undermine an environment of constructive critique. It sounds like a user taking out frustration from a specific experience on a group of people who are putting (at least some) effort towards solving the frustration, and the use of general attacks like "I thought Nautilus was pretending to be easy to use" and "scare away new users" don't seem to add anything to a discussion of HOW Nautilus might "pretend to compete" on this topic.

That said, Owlstead highlights the point that any visual miscues that make Nautilus less easy and clear to use, runs the risk of making Ubuntu less desirable to new computer users -- and that the same miscues can lead to risk of file loss by hasty users even when they do have a great deal of experience. It would be great if these points could be made a little more constructively -- if for nothing else, then for the fact that these bugs are public and seen and read by a pretty wide audience.

I understand that there's a group making moves to redesign Nautilus altogether, I think something along the timeline of the Gnome Shell project. I wonder if they have taken this long-standing annoyance into account?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue should be fixed in nautilus 3.5.4 (they dropped the treeview mode for the sidepanel)