No document templates by default

[ridem]

When fresh Ubuntu users want to create a new document, they figure out that there's no document template installed by default. This is REALLY an important usabiliy issue. Why don't we install text, spreadshett, presentation, gimp project (...) templates by default ?
The new user doesn't want to save a new file in the "Templates" folder in order to install a template...

In order to fix it, we could :
1°) Write By default an .odt, .ods, and .odp file in the Templates folder, and better explain the installation of templates
2°)Create a ~.templates folder that contains all the pre-installed templates, and write a really small program that handles the installation of new templates. If we choose this solution, we'd have to modify xdg-user-dirs-update in order to put
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/.templates"
in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue has been discussed in several bug reports already, upstream refuse to add an easy way for any application to define templates because that will lead to all the application doing that and the user having a useless menu full of templates for things which are not used on the installation

[Mat Tomaszewski (mat.t.)]

This is a complex and non-trivial issue affecting many different apps, not really a papercut

[Eugene Cormier (eugene-cormier)]

But most new users would only be looking for a text file and open office templates...can we not just dump empty files into a Templates folder .....forgeting about the ability for new programs to create their own, this is always one of the first steps I take in installing a new system.....even having the templates folder present would help users have some idea where to throw stuff....it think this is totally a papercut to have a right click context menu in nautilus with a "Create Document" option which is totally empty!

[ridem (ridem)]

I don't understand why adding some files into a folder can affect many different apps... Forgetting the idea of the small app, we could add some files into the Templates folder, as a text file, a spreadsheet file, ...etc.

It is a papercut. It's annoying for new users, and easy to solve. As I understood, Karmic will be a little crazier than the other releases. We must take the initiative, we must teach an old dog new tricks.

[Eugene Cormier (eugene-cormier)]

ok...I wrote in my 2cents on this and never heard back from anyone but the original bug filer. I do think that this is a trivial fix, and I do think it affects the overall user experience in a negative way. When I switched to Linux, about 5 years ago, I instantly saw in my right click on desktop the option to "create file" and when I saw that there was absolutely nothing in it, I started searching all over the net to learn how to fix it. (of course there were many other things I needed to fix so I actually never got around to actually figuring it out for about 6 months) Now I know how easy this is to fix...as soon as I make a fresh install the first thing I do is create a "Templates" folder in my home folder and fill it with empty docs from openoffice and a text doc. Now I'm sure there may be other formats people would like included which would be useful, but I think the first step is to simply put the templates folder in and fill it with a couple of essentials......if that had been done when I first switched, I would have easily noticed the templates folder in my home directory. I've changed the status back to NEW because I know time is running out for onehundredpapercuts, and I honestly think this is a no brainer. No offense meant to Mat T or anyone else who disagrees....if it is the consensus that this is not a proper papercut....fine....I'll just keep throwing my templates folder into home on a fresh install, but I really do think this would ease the transition of new users, and improve the user experience with no coding, but simply making a folder and throwing a couple of empty files into it......can we not do this or what??