> Graeme Merrall wrote:
> I'm sure we've seen that Slashdot article about Nautilis going to preview 1.
> I've heard a rumour of one slugger giving it a go?
> Anyone got it up and running?
Yup. I was going to do a quick review. :) Your best bet is to compile from
source I think... Worked fine for me after a couple of compiling issues.
First off it had some dependencies that weren't really mentioned on the
preview page (the URL of which I've lost) - gnome-print and libwww. Handily,
there doesn't seem to be a libwww package for woody which was alarming. Feh,
throw it on the list to be compiled... :)
Other than those troubles, the directions were very clear, and
straightforward. I really couldn't fault them. They recommended compiling
into /usr/local, but given my experience with RedHat, I throw everything
that needs to be compiled (and could conflict with everyday stuff) into /opt
Took a while to compile them (there's 7 tarballs or something), but I was
finally left with a run-nautilus script. :)
It's - for want of a better word - sexy.
Icons are vector-based (using librsvg), so you can blow them up to 400% and
they still look yummy. In fact, this seems to be such an important feature
that it's given prominent placement on the toolbar.
Another icon oddity that works really well is that icons can be of varying
size - right now I'm looking at my home directory, and there's an image
preview icon about twice the sixe of the others. Very nice. The art for the
icons is great, and shows an understanding of the target hardware.
I didn't compile it with Mozilla support (which was daft, I'll do it again
at some stage), but this is where Bonobo components make their biggest
impact. The Mozilla renderer (Gecko) does all the internetty stuff, just
like the Internet Explorer renderer (aptly named MSHTML) does all the
internetty stuff for Explorer. See, the DOJ could have taken MS to court for
countless other acts, yet managed to take them for something that could very
nearly have been innovative - if it weren't so loosely implemented.
Naughtylus makes the same mistake on this front, primarily because most of
the technologies aren't ready. It's an alpha-level grouping of alpha-level
components. Still, it shows an outrageous amount of promise.
Cute features:
* You'll notice a little icon in the menu, off to the right; either a green
circle, a blue square, or a black diamond. This defines the 'guru-level'
of the user. It's a very nice feature, and well implemented. Simple
example: you don't see dotfiles unless you're using the Expert level
(black). Of course, you can also customize these levels.
* Selection boxes don't look like crawling ants anymore! In fact they're
fairly solid. You get a nice dark outline, and a lighter fill - a feature
MacOS should have had years ago.
* You don't have to go all over the place for your information. File labels
can have size, comments, etc on them from the start. Folders tell you the
number of items inside them. Good stuff.
* Customisation. Go to the Edit menu and click customise. Play. Marvel at
the beauty, and the ease of use. Laugh at Explorer. Cackle at Windows
users. Realise that Michael Dell has no clue.
* A couple of weeks ago I posted to the list joking that, like graphical
thumbnails for images, you should hear a sample of a sound as you drag
your mouse over it. I quickly found out that Eazel were already sensible
enough to realise that this idea wasn't funny, but bloody useful. Hover
over those MP3's...
I never thought I could get used to a graphical file manager under Linux,
however, I think Naughtylus might just convince me.
I can't wait to see the reviews from Tog (http://www.asktog.com/) and Jakob
Neilsen (http://www.useit.com/).
- Jeff
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