will there be a "cd/dvd burning application" in Fedora 7?

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le vendredi 18 mai 2007 à 10:50 +0100, Bastien Nocera a écrit :

> What do you think of:
> - when blank CD/DVD is inserted, popup non-spatial nautilus window, with
> the sidebar tree rooted at CD/DVD creator

unfortunately, won't work

> - remove CD/DVD creator from the places menu

yes

> - Add a "Master and burn CD/DVD" application entry in the system tools
> menu

yes

> Would it make the task smoother? This is why I asked for use-cases and
> workflows, they're not just for show, they're useful.

Ok, you asked for it. I apologize if a certain level of frustration and
fury at the )@#! default GNOME solution leaks through.

I'll only write about mastering random data disks since
audio/video/picture disk mastering is likely to be launched from
dedicated apps, which should pre-answer many questions and only call the
burn app for the last burn stage

Ideal solution:

1. have a "Master and burn CD/DVD" application entry in the system tools
menu

2. the first time a new kind of blank is inserted, ask if the user wants
to launch the app (and remember the answer even if it's "do nothing")

3. when the app is launched, display a multi-area single window with one
part dedicated to selecting things to burn and the other showing the
current to-burn disk composition. Pin the to-burn part so it never
disappears from the screen

4. provide many sizing hints to help users fit data on disk. Biggest
hurdle when burning things is making them fit. Examples:
- size column in the file selector part so users see the size of what
they can select (not in number of files, in number of bytes)
- nero-like iso size gauge (showing the limits of the inserted blank,
user-overridable with typical blank sizes)
- baobab view of the to-burn selection, with a slice showing what space
is left or what space needs to be removed to fit on one disk

5. if the selection is too big for one image, auto-split it on several
disks (using smart date & hierarchy splitting so the split makes
senses). Provide user feedback on the envisioned split (for examples
using stripes of different colour for separate disk content in the
to-burn area)

6. do auto-filtering of commonly filtered files (hidden & backup files,
etc) but show the user what you're filtering and help him put some of
them back in the disk image if he wants to burn them too (when you do a
home backup you do not want to lose dotfiles/dirs). This can be done
with a similar area to the to-burn area + user drag & dropping from one
to the other

7. when the user selects burn :
- propose to name the disk
- propose to associate an icon to the disk
- propose to add md5/sha1/sha256 file sums to the disk (and sign it
using seahorse)
- propose to chain-check this list after the burn (no intermediate
dialog that kills unattended burning)
- propose to chain-burn several disk copies

Ideal user workflow : insert blank, drag & drop stuff in the burn area
(with all the visual hints helping check everything is ok in real-time),
press burn, name disks, go take a coffee.

Because nautilus-cd-burner thinks it's a file manager not a burn app it
fails this in numerous ways:

1. in spacial mode you are forced to interact with many windows (some
bright person added a firefox-like blue burn line to avoid a separate
menu/popup, but wasn't choked by the multi-window spacial requirement or
the general unfitness of the nautilus UI to the task)

2. in non-spacial mode nautilus will just change folders and leave
burning mode at the slightest opportunity because it didn't noticed we
asked to burn things and just thinks we are browsing yet another folder

3. you have zip sizing help (again nautilus-cd-burner will apply common
file manager rules and forget we are doing a specific task with specific
constraints). And when you get to the burn stage you better hope the
total size is burnable because the app is not going to help you

4. however you have a ton of unrelated menu items (emblems, shortcuts…)
that clutter the UI and have no relevance for a burn task

5. you have zip checksumming/signing/verifying options, when scratched
disks are a major user worry

On the plus side nautilus is about as broken as the windows thing people
are writing vengeful reviews about, so ex-windows users will happily
note Linux is as broken-by-design as windows.

Because apps like brasero or k3b are written to help users actually burn
stuff (instead of trying to masquerade a file manager as a burning app)
they are light-years ahead of the nautilus thing usability-wise.

In the course of this review I had nautilus-burn die at least twice from
to-burn selections it choked on.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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