Contributor nevermind85

In international Ubuntu installations, the 'Desktop' folder changes name to translated one, and in some cases, even contain space! (like 'Рабочий стол' for Russian).
While it is "normal" for Windows users which turn to Ubuntu, it has disadvantages:
- Navigation via terminal and keyboard to such folders is very hard and confusing.
- Navigation via ASCII terminal to such folders is impossible.
- Some programs, after installing, tries to create links in 'Desktop' folder, which not exist.
- When folder name contains space, it is hard or impossible to write scripts correctly.
- it looks like pulled from Windows.
To resolve it, I suggest never change 'Desktop' name, but create localized link to it.

Have an optional setting that can be set to let the user confirm an action by pressing a button such as "Allow" instead of having to type his own password in order to confirm an action.

Some people get frustrated by having to type their password. Many would like to just press an "Allow" button instead of typing their password.

I am not proposing to use this by default. I am proposing an option to enable this behavior.

BEFORE VOTING DOWN PLEASE CONSIDER THIS:
(I know almost everyone would hate this idea but i'll give it a try)

When Ubuntu was born canonical decided to use Gnome as default desktop. Why? Because Gnome is Simple, Easy, Just Works and KDE 3.x is just too messy and kind of not easy to the eye.

But KDE 4 has arrived and gives a new meaning to the word usability.
How? well it was re-written and now is way more efficient with your ram, which, let's face it, gnome sucks.

New Interface! Now KDE looks as organized as Gnome! And just as beautiful as Mac OS X.

Right now it's just a Beta Release but when it becomes stable it will be a awesome improvement.

This is not a forum for humor...it is a very serious place and only legit ideas should ever be considered. No one should be posting anything even slightly humorous on this site. It should be for Ubuntu ideas only, and nothing about Ubuntu is supposed to be fun.

Idea: When trying to assemble a group of files from many directories on a hard drive, creating groups of files would help a lot.

Long-winded (Sorry) EXAMPLE:

I want to copy or move a group of pictures, music files, etc. from a number of directories around my hard drive(s) to a central location or even to write to CD/DVD.

Now, I go to the first directory using a file manager and select some file there and must move/copy them somewhere else until I am ready to chose a permanent location. So, I need to use a "move to..." selection in the right mouse menu (assuming there is one), and repeat for each directory in which I want to select files.

A NEW WAY:

I still need to navigate to each directory and select files but, when I do, the right mouse menu offers me an option to "Add files to group" function. This function tracks,
possibly with XML markup, the absolute path to each selected file and remembers it.

After selecting all the files in all the directory I want, I then right mouse and select the Copy group to or Move Group to entries to perform that option. It cuts out the repetitive Move or Copy function for each directory.

There should probably be a Clear Group option for do-overs.

I think it might have a positive speed of operation impact. Open to any comments or suggestions.

Ralph

Graphic User Interface (GUI) for Command Line Interface with command options and including a "Help" function.

Situations :
1) Newbies uncomfortable with Command Line.
2) Tired of referring to manuals, manpages, info, net (for help).
3) People want to avoid typing errors
4) Easy to learn and begin to use

Much of the problem in using system commands would be radically reduced for Ubuntu users, if the "commands and their options"(& default settings) were readily available together in a GUI window. The window could include display for explanations/documentation/help.


Solution Path - How the present help and man pages can be used for a new GUI command maker ;

Most programs and utilities that use the command line also have a help file and or manual file.

The help files and manual files list the command options, and some of them tend to use similar formats for listing the command options and their usages.

It would be possible to have a program that ;
a) goes through the system looking for CLI type commends and programs,
b) looks up their help files and manuals (on the PC and optionally on the net),
c) reads the usages and converts it (if needed) into standard help files and manual layouts.

These standard layouts can then be read by a GUI front end to a command (invoked say by the command GUI interpreter followed by "-command name"), to compose and show ;
a) a window with the command as a title,
b) a line for the compounded text of the full command,
c) a list of options (that may be tabbed if there are multiple multi-choice options),

[....]

I think that somewhere (either in a right cick menu on the desktop or in Nautilus preferences) there should be an option to hide all desktop icons. This seems like it would be an easy extra little button, particularly if it were to be added to Nautilus' preferences. The functionality is available in gconf via Apps > Nautilus >Preferences > show_desktop.

This would be in addition to ideas such as this: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/5316/

Gnome's "Take Screenshot" application should be extended to also allow the desktop to be recorded as a video. This would be used heavily by many power users, including those who like to showoff compiz to friends, to help show newbie family how do to some things they are having trouble with, and those who work on video tutorials.

At the time of installation ubuntu system should ask laptop users whether they want to encrypt their hard drive. And should inform that it's unsecure not to do so if user chooses "No".

It is good that encryption is already implemented in the installer. Now you should inform the user to be aware of not using it. It is bad to discover about hard-drive encryption after someone has stolen your laptop. Or, in better case, after you have already installed the system.

[Idea closed: It wasn't a good idea and messed with things that shouldn't be messed with]

The title isn't the exact idea, but it's the basis of the idea.

The most annoying thing when browsing through artists and albums when using ANY music player is that the list is polluted with artists and albums from which one has very few tracks. It makes browsing for an artist or album increasingly pointless as one's music collection grows, and so people just end up using the search function exclusively. I believe that there is still hope for browsing however.


This is what the beginning of my Artist list looks like in Rhythmbox:

All 280 Artists (1884)
Artist 1 (11)
Artist 2 (1)
Artist 3 (1)
Artist 4 (1)
Artist 5 (23)
Artist 6 (1)
Artist 7 (1)
Artist 8 (1)
Artist 9 (3)
(...)

Up to G in my list of Artists, I can count over 50 artists from which I only have one track. Most of these are from compilation discs, online music stores, or are free promotional singles. It makes browsing by artist a nightmare.

The same is true for albums, though not quite as horrible.

I feel it would make sense to group artists 2-4 and 6-8 in "Other" artists at the very end of the list of artists in Rhythmbox.

[....]

Control-alt-delete should reboot the computer like in the good old days.

I've got a 1 Gb USB storage with an 800 Mb file on it.

When I want to copy an updated version of this file (same name), Nautilus warn me that the operation can't be done cause there is not enought space on the disk.

So I have to manualy erase the old file, empty the trashcan, and finaly copy the new file.


Therefore I suggest that Nautilus check files name when coping or moving operations BEFORE complaining about having not enought space left. (and then simply ask if we want to replace/rename/cancel)

What's your thought :)

I created a new user account on my Ubuntu system called 'admin'. I soon realised that after a reboot I could not sudo or access Synaptic or unlock users-groups.

I traced this back to the new 'admin' user having a group 'admin' created which was written over the default system 'admin' group (for system administration). I had to do a recovery boot and delete the admin user (which deleted the group also). Then I had to recreate the group and add my user account to it and all was well again!

With this in mind, my suggestion is that users-groups should not allow a user to create a username that could cause problems with the system. There are several reserved names that should generate a warning before allowing the user to continue. These should include:

admin
root
users
syslog
klog
crontab
gdm

I was not sure if this was a bug or a suggestion, but since the users-groups program does not have this functionality built-in already I am submitting this as a suggestion.

Since there may be several file systems mounted at the same time, the name of the volume is confusing.

Whenever I'm installing a package using apt-get or anything similar, either from the terminal or from synaptic, I cannot run the synaptic browser. It says that it cannot get the exclusive lock since another package installer is already running. An improvement could be that even if another install is in progress, I should be able to browse packages in synaptic, but if I try to install them, it can tell me to wait for the current install. Also, why can't I install 2 packages simultaneously? If that's because of some security issue, what can it possibly be? And why such tight security for a home user?



Visit me at http://parrymathur.blogspot.com

This idea is fairly major as it requires some change to basic way frameworks such as GTK, QT4, Tcl etc. work. The idea that the graphical framework used and the filesystem GUI are coupled is completely outdated. Why can't a GTK2 app use the QT4 filesystem dialogue box when saving say a document in KDE4?

I'm proposing that there be a GUI filesystem access abstraction layer for all frameworks to use. The underlying GUI filesystem access is managed by the default desktop in use. Any application requiring GUI access to the filesystem would use the desktop default settings.

The major benefit of this idea is a more consistent visual experience for the user. Different filesystem dialogues for different frameworks makes for an inconsistent and unprofessional look and feel when using various applications from different frameworks. Additionally, different frameworks have different settings/favourites/bookmarks/etc that are not replicated. By having a default defined by the desktop in use, we get much closer to seamless framework interoperability.

Some people here on brainstorm have been using "bloat" as an argument against an idea. There have been over 1020 uses of the term bloat (which increased 100 uses in the past week alone) here on brainstorm, and yet, not a single user is willing to stand up and define what they mean. The term is overused, its very generic, doesn't contribute towards refining the ideas, and is designed to swing clueless newbies towards the commenter's side. Instead people should be forced to use more specific statements such as:
- Consumes extra ram
- Consumes extra storage space
- Complicates the interface
- Uses too much CPU

An example use of the word is: "My thinking is that one should keep the default programs relatively simple to prevent bloat". Had the guy said "My thinking is that one should keep the default programs relatively simple to prevent complicating the interface", people could suggest a gui design which proves it doesn't.

In another case, someone claimed that adding a program to the repo's bloated the repos. The use of "bloat" actually degrades the quality of comments in brainstorm, and does nothing but limit useful discussion after. Of all the 900 uses of the word, its very rare to see it being used in a way that makes sense. So lets blacklist it so that people are forced to clarify their comments. This will improve discussion greatly

I would like to propose a new way to use copy/paste without the use of Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and without right click.

I'm thinking about a way to copy one OR MORE files or folder to a temporary place which can be associated to "I've picked these files and there are in my hand". Then, you can release the group of files in a new location after browsing.

It will be thus possible to copy/paste more than one file/directory at one time :-)


Example :
- I want to copy home/me/list.pdf and home/me/subfolder/image.jpg to my usb key
- I go to home/me/ and I drag and drop list.pdf to the clipboard stack, which in represented in nautilus as a list (see
http://www.vergeylen.eu/stephane/uploads/divers/copyPaste.png )
- I can see that the clipboard contains list.pdf
- I navigate to home/me/subfolder and I drag and drop image.jpg to the same clipboard. This new file is added to the clipboard for further traitment.
- When I've chosen every files and folder I need, I navigate to my USB key (let's say, I click on its icon on the desktop, which opens a new window)
- In this new window, I see the same contents in the clipboard and I click "Copy to this place". I'm done


In summary, here is what is necessary to add to Nautilus to do this :
- A list (stack) which represent the contents of the clipboard
- An "Empty icon" to empty the clipboard
- An "Copy here icon" to copy all the clipboard in the present location

[....]