Comment 66 for bug 48671

@kikl

"Oh, by the way, you can use the arrows for navigating the cursor and that actually makes more sense than using the mouse [...]"

UI design is not about what is the philosophically right thing to do in a perfect world but what gets the job done with the least resistance. And apparently many people have come to expect to be able to rename a file by clicking on it twice. Whether that is a sensible way of doing it, well, I stated my opinion quite clearly. But people want the functionality because _it works for them_. If we removed every feature from Ubuntu that is not ideal UI-wise or that causes issues for some people we'd be left with very, very little. I doubt that giving people the option requested in this bug will bind overly large resources to implement, and I doubt that it would break the UI for those who don't want it if it can be easily disabled and is announced clearly enough. If it means that much to some people and if it eases the transition from different systems to GNOME for them, why not implement it?

Besides, what sense does it make to rename a file by pressing F2? None. But it works great for many people. We should strive for sound and sensible UI design, but we don't need to be holier than the pope.

"I don't think it's a good idea to merely copy a feature because windows is using it [...]"

I don't think that, either. But I do think that we should copy features that are useful for some of our users. I for one would love to see the Explorer's nav bar from Windows Vista/2008 "copied" to Nautilus, for example. It was the only reason why I upgraded from 2003 to 2008, and I really consider it the greatest innovation I have ever seen in the whole line of Windows since NT 4. Nautilus offers two nav bar states that both have their pros and cons, Explorer's bar gives me the pros of both without their issues. I also like the concept of "ribbons" as shown in the latest MS Office, although they completely messed up the implementation. So no, we should not make GNOME a second Windows. But we should not commit the fallacy of dismissing an idea simply because it was inspired by a Microsoft product.

(I'd rather not delve into the issues I have with today's interface design as a whole. It's 2009 and we still have to deal with a desktop, files, folders, applications... It's been 36 years since Xerox's Alto and nothing has changed except resolution and colour depth. It's like literature (as in the academic discipline): It is coherent in itself, but from the outside it's still bull...)

"So maybe you have a suggestion, how the annoying problem can be overcome that many users very often mistakenly start editing file names when this feature is implemented?"

As I wrote: When the user invokes this functionality for the first time, explain to them briefly what it does, how to replicate it, and how to turn it off if they don't want it. Those who have issues with it can then turn it off conveniently, those who like it can keep it, and all of them are aware that the feature is available and can be configured at any time. I believe we can ask a new user to spend a few clicks to set up their environment to their liking without overstraining them. They all have a different background, different needs and different preferences; we should respect that.