Design draft

[WatchMkr]

Although it's 2 years old, we have good ideas in our first files design iteration.

https://www.figma.com/proto/ZaRbmKKhMtfQWZFNrZyj2y/App-experiments?node-id=2-229&starting-point-node-id=2%3A229

NavBar

• Recent at top (not in the design)
• All directories (except "Home") and files are "Favorites". This allows users to remove "Music" or "Trash" if they aren't frequently used
• Favorite files are separated from favorite directories
• Favorite directories and files can be dragged and dropped to arrange them
• We'll need a storage section for mounted drives
• Something like "Other locations" for browsing the entire file system and networks (which can be added to favorites to include them in "Other locations"

Header We've moved to a menubar in other cosmic apps. We likely want to do that for cosmic-files. Draft here

File previews (and properties)

• In the ContextDrawer
• Perhaps a TabBar to switch between properties and setting file permissions

Breadcrumbs

• We need "Back" and "Forward" buttons which should probably go to the left of breadcrumbs. For fit, in single column view, do we need to remove breadcrubs and only show the directory name?
• "Back" means last directory not necessarily up a directory
• Breadcrumbs bar can be edited to enter a path
• What happens when the breadcrumb list gets long? Only show the last three?

Find/Search

• Use the same FindBar we designed for Edit and Terminal?
• Type to initiate find along with the menu item and shortcut?
• Advanced find (time period (day, days, weeks, year, all) and type of file)

[jackpot51]

I have concerns with removing Trash. There's no easy way to get there if someone removes it, and it is where files that are deleted go by default.

[loligans]

File previews (and properties)

It would be super nice if there was the ability to quickly preview a file by pressing space. This is a usability enhancement that I believe to be extremely convenient.

What happens when the breadcrumb list gets long?

Often when this happens it can make editing the path manually difficult because there isn't enough free space to activate the text input with the mouse. I feel like this situation should be considered when designing what happens when the list gets long.

I have concerns with removing Trash. There's no easy way to get there if someone removes it, and it is where files that are deleted go by default.

It feels perfectly acceptable to have a sane default that works for most users, which includes the Trash. Having the option to hide it through settings would be a good middle ground I think.

[leviport]

Regarding typing to start a search... This is something that has always annoyed me with Nautilus. If I start typing in ~, it starts a really big search, which slows it down for a long period of time, then shows me tons of results in really deep subdirectories.

In many other file managers, like Thunar, Nemo, and Windows Explorer, it acts less like a full-on search and highlights the matching item in the current directory. For me, this makes keyboard-only navigation MUCH faster. I type the first few letters of a directory I want to go to, it selects it instantly, I hit Enter, then repeat until I'm in the directory I want to be in. This is even more useful in dialogs (file>open/save, etc.).

Full-on file search can still be done with Ctrl + F, or by clicking the search button, but I find myself needing that functionality much more rarely than I use the keyboard navigation method described above.