Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
What do you prefer: Spatial or Browser navigation?
Spatial: Each folder is represented by a single window, meaning a new window is opened for each folder. This is the default mode in Haiku.
Browser: Each folder is opened in the same window. This can be activated in Tracker preferences using Single window navigation.
Comments
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I like browser mode. I always switch to browser mode. This is one of the first things I change in Haiku. Spatial opens too many windows for me. For some reason the developers really like spatial mode but I cannot understand why. Seems harder to use and keep track of a bunch of open windows all over the place.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser mode for me too. Spatial is cool too, but I am too much used to browser mode, less windows.
IMO Tracker is the best file manager ever created. It puts in shame every other file manager out there.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
tonestone57 wrote:
I like browser mode. I always switch to browser mode. This is one of the first things I change in Haiku.
Full ack!
It's the very first thing i do right after a fresh HAIKU installation (and since using BeOS back in the days in 2000/2001...) :-)
I also like the addressbar where you can navigate through typing in the wanted target-location. Combined with the (godlike) Right-Mouse-Click-Navigation™, Tracker provides IMHO the best navigation feeling i ever used on graphical user environments. It's just flexible in all directions.
Using HAIKU and Linux at work i'm always frustrated when switching to gnome desktop and hitting the right mouse button...
Hell i love this Tracker!
A little bit OT:
AFAR there has been a HOME-button on OpenTracker (or Navi-Tracker?) in BeOS for jumping back to /home folder and a Terminal-button on Zeta which provided to open current location in Terminal. Neat features...
Have a nice day,
prOSy
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
When I open a file manager, I want that window to show the folder I intent to browse. Therefor I prefer the browser style. I am also a keyboard guy, meaning I use the keyboard as much as possible. Therefor, I use type-ahead filtering.
I recorded a video showing how I use Tracker (plays in VLC): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5976153/tracker_type_filter.mov
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I prefer browser style myself.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser mode for me too.... actually spatial is one of the most irritating things I have come across. Its mostly that I have to close a bazillion windows when I was only doing one task that I find rather insane.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser seems safer. Running 2 or 3 instances of spatial for file transfers between several drives or partitions can get dangerous with that huge forest of windows. Then you have to shut them all!
But spatial seems traditional default even going back to BeOS R4. Wonder why? - must be a PPC thing? I try to think MacOS when puzzled by stuff like that since that was the target back then. ...an easy transition from MacOS to BeOS.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser mode for me too.... actually spatial is one of the most irritating things I have come across. Its mostly that I have to close a bazillion windows when I was only doing one task that I find rather insane.
You know, right click open in new window would be better for times when you are working in a root directory and need to get into multiple folders.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
This is the second setting I ususlly change on a new Haiku install. Right after changing the video screen mode. I need the navigator and Single window navigation. How does one deal with spacial mode anyway? In my opinion it is completely useless.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser mode is far better for me - i'm using BeOS since many years and Haiku from Alpha 1 - and for some friends of mine* with Haiku installed.
*They are beginners, the first time they didn't know how to change this setting.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Yes, the default settings for the filebrowser are really bad. When I used Haiku the first time, it was very annoying to have so many windows, and as a newbie you dont know the settings and the shortcuts that are available.
The first thing i do after installing haiku, is of course changing all that settings. I can not understsand why "browser mode" is not the default mode. Just because of nostalgic sentiments?
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
This ticket: http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/7837
Ticket #7837 shows how the devs feel. I think they are wrong, but I am not a developer.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Yep, like others here I set browser mode directly after install, I also move the deskbar down and change copy/paste to windows/linux style (I know it's kinda less practical in terminal but my brain is just hard-wired to those keys).
It's great that Haiku is flexible and easily adjusted in these ways.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser style would be a horror to develop code in.
To me it looks like a common theme that people who like to do one thing at a time, like the browser mode.
Personally, handling the different directories while writing code works a lot better in spatial mode.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I prefer Browser mode, the developers should look at this thread.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I prefer spatial mode. One reason is Haiku's attributes that other platforms don't have to account for. They traditionally only show name, size, date. I want my windows' size to remain how I left it, showing all attributes I need, e.g. with emails. The position isn't that important to me most of the time, but sometimes that is as well.
I mostly use keyboard navigation, in part because I always feel the touchpad being too imprecise. So, navigating with type-ahead-filtering and moving up and down with (OPT+)ALT+Cursor is very natural to me. Sometimes, I do change to an emtpy workspace, navigate to my hearts content, never minding many open windows. After I did what I came to do, a quick ALT+Q closes any mess I may have left behind on that workspace.
I do wonder, however, if the auto-closing with the OPT key shouldn't be reversed, i.e. have windows auto-close by default and only keep it open when holding OPT. Considering that most of the time you don't want a window left open when drilling down. That would also cut down the newbie-issue of leaving a buttload of windows open.
Personally, I'd even go with the right-click-drill-down-navigation more often, if it had the type-ahead(-filtering) feature...
Regards,
Humdinger
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I also have written more than 10.000 lines of code related to haiku, and always in browser mode.
You can open the filebrowser in browser mode as often as you like, then you can stack&tile them how you like and you can code.
In any case the spatial mode is a very bad idea, becasue if you dont know the short-cuts you end up with a screen full of windows.
New users dont know that shortcuts, and they get a bad impression. Even more, i think the whole haiku gui should take away the focus from keyboard and concentrate more on the mouse/pointer, because I guess that touch screens will become more and more important. I want to have haiku on an ARM with touch screen. That still may take some time, but who knows what the next year can bring :P
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Yes the spatial mode give a bad impression and it is a pity it is the default... I've tried to use it and in 1 hour my desktop was hidden from 100s of opened dirs... so set browser mode!
Another thing that I hate is the ALT and CTRL reversed Apple Style (ALT+C instead of CTRL+C???) I've asked to change this, but the ticket was closed... developer like this they say "it is more right"... but the other OS use CTRL+C to copy... and users are habituated to do this; I think it is not a good idea to invert the key without a very good motivation.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
IIRC the reason for ALT-C to copy is that CTRL-C is the POSIX standard to stop a process in Terminal. BTW not all other OS's use CTRL-C: Mac OSX uses CMD-C which on a windows keyboard works out to WIN-C.
Oh yes, browser all the way. The devs all seem to prefer spatial. But if they are developing Haiku only for dev use, then let's just give up and all go to Linux :-)
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
In the end Linux, too is resigned... CTRL+C is copy and CTRL+V and paste (and yes there is that messy mouse highlight combo that never is in sync with CTRL shortcut) and yes in terminal CTRL+C means SIGKILL... what is the problem?
We must follow the "mass" and da mass is Windows say to copy you shall use CTRL not ALT for the past 30 years... it is erroneous? Maybe... but it is the standard by the way...
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Obviously there are people that have very different points of view when it comes to the purpose and philosophy of Haiku. Luckily all the mentioned features up to now, that do not mimick other OSs, are matters of settings and defaults. Nobody wants to remove single window browsing, CTRL<->ALT choice or where to put the Deskbar and the colour of tabs. Believe it or not, these aren't users vs. devs issues (if there even is such a thing). Plenty of devs prefer single browsing or the Deskbar on top/bottom.
The solution is simple: if the annoying feature/setting can't be improved (detailed enhancements are welcome at the bug tracker), and the majority of the active devs cannot be convinced by arguments (other than from popularity or ignorance), someone needs to go to the trouble to create a distribution that corrects all these seemingly upsetting failures.
I suggest to name it "Bikesheku". :)
Regards,
Humdinger
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Obviously there are people that have very different points of view when it comes to the purpose and philosophy of Haiku. Luckily all the mentioned features up to now, that do not mimick other OSs, are matters of settings and defaults. Nobody wants to remove single window browsing, CTRL<->ALT choice or where to put the Deskbar and the colour of tabs. Believe it or not, these aren't users vs. devs issues (if there even is such a thing). Plenty of devs prefer single browsing or the Deskbar on top/bottom.
The solution is simple: if the annoying feature/setting can't be improved (detailed enhancements are welcome at the bug tracker), and the majority of the active devs cannot be convinced by arguments (other than from popularity or ignorance), someone needs to go to the trouble to create a distribution that corrects all these seemingly upsetting failures.
I suggest to name it "Bikesheku". :)
Regards,
Humdinger
you know a simple post install one time 1st boot application that offers a few predefined templates for common functions like copy/paste windowing mode etc, would be a good investment to put this one to bed.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Browser style would be a horror to develop code in.
Personally, handling the different directories while writing code works a lot better in spatial mode.
While I think 'horror' is an exaggeration, I can see that it might be less practical for certain situations.
However, it's not like browser mode can't be improved, I'm using Thunar on linux for my day-to-day work and it's in browser mode, however I can simply right click on any directory and use the context menu to 'Open in new window' which solves this downside to browsing style very elegantly.
Haiku could add something like this, or perhaps a key-press which together with a left-mouse click on a directory would open it in a new window.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I prefer Spatial. It's a lot easier when reorganising files as I can go open a several directories from one directory without having to reopen that folder all the time. I may have to open a directory from way back in the file system, Spatial makes it easier as it is already there.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
POLL
Post your preference here: http://forums.begroovy.com/index.php?topic=5465.0
This is a way to quantify your preference.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Survey running here:
https://spreadsheets2.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEo2RHVHUH...
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
For me, there are circumstances when "Spatial" is advantageous and others when Browser is more straight-forward.
Ideally, I would like to be able to see the contents of the active folder in one window and the tree structure of folders in another - at least the parent and siblings of the active folder.
If only one the two traditional modes is possible, then being able to switch on the fly when opening the first window, rather than going through a general preference menu, would be great.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Another option that could be considered (if it hasn't already) is the default ability to open a new window by clicking a directory with the middle mouse button or something equivalent. This way you can fall back to single window mode, which is perfect for most people, and still keep the ability to easily open a new window from the current directory.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
Just in case it wasn't clear: You open a new window in single browse mode by doing an OPT-double-left-click. This will open that folder in its saved size/position, i.e. it's never clobbered by single browsing into that folder. Not sure that was always the case, maybe Aldeck did some magic there... Anyway, I've experimentally switched to single browsing and so far I really like it!
I agree, that a middle-click as shortcut for OPT-double-left-click would be nice. People are already familiar to that from browsers opening a link in a new tab/window.
Regards,
Humdinger
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I agree, that a middle-click as shortcut for OPT-double-left-click would be nice. People are already familiar to that from browsers opening a link in a new tab/window.
Regards,
Humdinger
Yes, Thunar uses middle mouse click to open in new window (I believe Gnome Nautilus and KDE konqueror does too). For some reason I was under the impression that middle mouse button was used for something in the Haiku gui already, else I'd have suggested it since it's what I use daily under Thunar.
As for spatial versus browsing, which systems default to spatial these days? I can't really think of any Linux file managers that defaults to spatial these days, OSX went browser with Finder 10 iirc, Windows 7 defaults to browsing aswell afaik. So is it only Haiku and Aros which are defaulting to spatial at the moment?
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I prefer spatial browsing; it's nice to have a place for your folders, and it works just great together with the right click navigation. Also, Tracker is incredibly space conserving that let's you do extreme things like this without losing control or overview, and beats every IDE:
Beyond coding, it's still nice to have folders exactly in the size you left them to see exactly what you want to see of them.
Re: Spatial or Browser: What do you prefer?
I have to ask, is there anything in your use of spatial mode which cannot be as easily done using browser mode and the OPT+doubleclick to open new browser windows when you choose to do so?