Package: nautilus Version: 3.8.2-2 Severity: normal Tags: upstream Dear Maintainer,
As heavily discussed upstream [0][1] but not yet reported as a bug in debian (this report changes that), changes introduced in version 3.6 of nautilus lead to a serious UI regression for the default file *manager* on the debian desktop. The removal of type-ahead browsing has fundamentally changed the behaviour of the file browser, and it is now impossible to *browse* the filesystem without the use of a mouse. The improved *search* functionality is fantastic, but is fundametnally a different activity to browsing. The at times unpleasant and strained conversations in other bugs reports need not be repeated here, but from my careful reading stem from some individuals having a lack of distinction between the two logically different operations of searching and browsing. Upstream, as is their right, have chosen to attempt to design a UI that pulls the concept of browsing into the domain of a search, but I would argue that even if (infinitely) fast and very smart, search cannot logically be a replacement for browsing. The fundamental distinction that separates browsing and search (no matter how fast and smart that search becomes) is very simple: search is a filter, presenting results from some specified condition. type-ahead (browsing) is not filter, but a way to move the "cursor" to the desired location within the existing (and critically unfiltered/unchanged) context. To my mind, anything and everything else discussed around this [0][1] (e.g. speed, relevance of search-returns) etc is actually of (a distant) secondary importance. And so to the essence of this bug: REGRESSION: The nautilus file browser no longer has a keyboard operated browsing mechanism* *To be 100% clear, it does now have a very fast and impressively smart keyboard operated searching mechanism that prioritizes results from the current directory, but as per my argument, this is completely irrelevant for the use case of browsing. With that summary, and my (perhaps flawed) attempt to describe the *logical* (and certainly not *UI design choice*) issue here, comes the difficult bit: How can debian resolve this bug? Users of sid (right now) and testing (soon) are about to be bitten. Options include: 1. Restoring the lost browsing functionality (type-ahead find) through a patch to nautilus 3.8(sid/testing) or 3.10(experimental) - very difficult presumably without support of upstream (who are very clear on not re-implementing this browsing feature, as they firmly believe that the two concepts of search and browse can be merged) but in the end the only viable solution (short of convincing upstream to change policy). 2. Pulling nautilus 3.4 into gnome 3.8/3.10 - presumably completely impractical and with escalating difficulty as time goes on. 3. Replacing the default file-manager in debian's gnome with nemo - this could be achieved fairly simply (I've done so on my system) but would be rather odd from a whole of desktop distribution point of view to have one non-gnome piece of software replacing one of the core upstream elements of gnome. My intention here is not to start the same sequence of arguments in debian as have occurred upstream (they can be read in detail at your leisure [0][1]), but to ensure that debian has an explicitly acknowledged representation to (and from) its community that this issue is here. I personally think this is worthy of status SEVERE or even GRAVE if one can extend those categories beyond technical elements of software and into the realm of the human interaction with (and reaction to) it. It is one of the most intrusive and difficult to deal with changes in UI that I have experienced in over 20 years of linux use. gnome3 (which I love) is a UI design choice - intrusive but a UI *choice*. This bug is a fundamental muddling up of different *logical* operations that one may want to perform (which I think explains a lot of the animosity between those people who see the logical issue here and those who argue that a clever search UI can provide the functionality). [0] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=680849 [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=680118 -- System Information: Debian Release: jessie/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (800, 'testing'), (700, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386 Kernel: Linux 3.10-3-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Versions of packages nautilus depends on: ii desktop-file-utils 0.22-1 ii gsettings-desktop-schemas 3.8.2-2 ii gvfs 1.16.3-1+b1 ii libatk1.0-0 2.10.0-2 ii libc6 2.17-93 ii libcairo-gobject2 1.12.16-2 ii libcairo2 1.12.16-2 ii libexempi3 2.2.1-1 ii libexif12 0.6.21-1 ii libgail-3-0 3.8.6-1 ii libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 2.28.2-1 ii libglib2.0-0 2.36.4-1 ii libglib2.0-data 2.36.4-1 ii libgnome-desktop-3-7 3.8.4-2 ii libgtk-3-0 3.8.6-1 ii libnautilus-extension1a 3.4.2-2 ii libnotify4 0.7.6-1 ii libpango-1.0-0 1.36.0-1 ii libpangocairo-1.0-0 1.36.0-1 ii libselinux1 2.2-2 ii libtracker-sparql-0.16-0 0.16.2-1 ii libx11-6 2:1.6.2-1 ii libxml2 2.9.1+dfsg1-3 ii nautilus-data 3.8.2-2 ii shared-mime-info 1.0-1+b1 Versions of packages nautilus recommends: ii eject 2.1.5+deb1+cvs20081104-13 ii gnome-icon-theme-symbolic 3.10.1-1 ii gnome-sushi 3.8.1-1 ii gvfs-backends 1.16.3-1+b1 ii librsvg2-common 2.36.4-2 Versions of packages nautilus suggests: ii brasero 3.8.0-2 ii eog 3.8.2-1 ii evince [pdf-viewer] 3.8.3-2 ii totem 3.8.2-3 ii tracker 0.16.2-1 ii xdg-user-dirs 0.15-1 -- no debconf information
