Creating a new notebook is confusing

[Jens Askengren]

 * What's the difference between directory and root folder?
 * Home page? Why not just automatically use the first created page?
 * Slow file system? Compared to what? How should I know. Why not auto detect the use of a network file system?
 * Why should I have to care about all this settings at all? The only relevant field is the name.

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

Please be a bit more constructive and add a proposal how things should work.

You might also want to check the recent mailing list discussion about changing the open notebook dialog here: https://lists.launchpad.net/zim-wiki/msg00406.html

[Jens Askengren (jens-askengren)]

Example of how the dialog could look like.

The notebook should probably be created in $XDG_DATA_HOME/zim/NAME_OF_NOTEBOOK according to
http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

The slow file system option could maybe be detected automatically using gvfs methods.

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

Thanks for the mock up - will take it into consideration when re-doing the
dialog.

Indeed we could try to guess the slow fs option based on checking the mount
point versus the mount point of the user home direcory.

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:09 AM, Jens Askengren wrote:

> The notebook should probably be created in
> $XDG_DATA_HOME/zim/NAME_OF_NOTEBOOK according to
> http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
>

The XDG_DATA_HOME is a hidden directory. We use it for application data like
templates, but for the actual notes it will not do. This has been discussed
several times on the mailing list already, and my conclusion remains that
the notes should be in a user visible directory by default.

-- Jaap

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

In the python branch the "new notebook" dialog was already reduced to just a name and a folder. Further simplification would need a default folder to create a notebook by name only.

[dotancohen (dotancohen)]

> In the python branch the "new notebook" dialog was already reduced to just a name
> and a folder. Further simplification would need a default folder to create a notebook
> by name only.

I actually think that this is a good idea.

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i think it is very good right now (pyzim version with name+location).
i dislike the idea of notebooks being created at some special place. i want my notebook/wiki to be ordinary files and for ordinary files i want to choose where to put them...

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 1:06 PM, Michael Nagel <email address hidden> wrote:
> i think it is very good right now (pyzim version with name+location).
> i dislike the idea of notebooks being created at some special place. i want my notebook/wiki to be ordinary files and for ordinary files i want to choose where to put them...

My thinking is that there should be a default folder for users who
don't have any specific whishes. Of course there should always be an
easy way to specify another folder if you do want to customize the
layout.

-- Jaap

[Jaap Karssenberg (jaap.karssenberg)]

CLosing this report as I think the current dialog is already much better than it was when this report got opened.