I've been playing around with Apple Mac OS X Leopard and, although the system didn't impress me that much, I loved one feature that I really like to see in Ubuntu.
It's called Quick Look, and allows you to view the contents of a file without open its default application.
This is great when you have a folder with different types of files (JPG, MPG, DOC) and you want see the content of the files quickly without open many applications (Eog, Totem, OpenOffice Writer in this case)
You can look how this work in Mac OS X on here, here and here.

Nautilus could detect if a folder contains a majority of a certain type of files and adapt the type and number of columns to provide more useful details.

I think of pictures folders, where it could show exif informations about pictures like the resolution of the picture and its capture date (in addition to the modification date)

I also think of music folders, where it could show the bitrate,the length and the (ID3) tags of the music files.
I think this would be very useful.

In addition, the ability to add/remove columns should be available by the right click on the listview header.

Please see the comments for further ideas

From #6245 (merged):

Having an extra column in the list showing something like "23x456" would be ideal, because you could see the info for all the files in the folder at once.

Have the info in the status-bar would be better than what we've got currently (right-click->properties->image shows the info in Nautilus, but it's not very efficient)

Many people use Ubuntu but most of them know few about Ubuntu brainstorm

In Mac OS X when you try to copy/move a file in a protected folder appears a pop-up that asks you to insert admin password.

In Ubuntu the same thing become very difficult, especilly copying multiple files: you have to access to the terminal and write a command. This could be really stressing for a new user.

Could you implement the same function seen on Mac?

I have an nvidia card, and under Sys->Admin->NVidia Settings, I can click on Thermal Monitor and see a Core Temperature reading. Every now and then, when my fan is blocked, the computer overheats and crashes.

User directories on ubuntu are a mess at the moment. They need more standardisation and more sense to remain clean. If you go to terminal/bash you may discover that your directory looks something like:


/home/auzy/Documents
/home/auzy/.Azureus (Hidden)
/home/auzy/.gnome2 (Hidden)
/home/auzy/Desktop
/home/auzy/.bashrc2 (Hidden)
/home/auzy/readme.rtf
/home/auzy/.Trash (Hidden)
/home/auzy/iffy.rtf
/home/auzy/delete me.rtf
/home/auzy/argggggg.c
/home/auzy/fgdhgfdhd.txt
/home/auzy/Music
/home/auzy/.ooffice (Hidden)
/home/auzy/friendsassignment.c
/home/auzy/friendsassignmentCopy.c
etc.


While you may note that anything with . is hidden normally, what if someone wants to delete the settings for a program? They need to manually unhide it, and sort through the dozens of directories in the home directory to find it. The problems with this is that:

a) Its messy, and certainly not a clean solution
b) Users cannot easily access their settings.
c) Everyones home directory is normally trashed with hundreds of other files, making it difficult to navigate.

[....]

It would be great if users could attach money to Brainstorm ideas. Its all good and well to post hundreds of ideas, but as things go, ideas which are posted first may not be the best ideas, but will climb to the top fastest (and will stay there, because people will vote for them on most popular).

Lets make it possible for people to donate $5 or so to their own ideas. Sure nobody may implement it, or the patch may not be accepted but it opens things up a lot more. Nobody loses either.

For those who think that this will turn linux coders into people who only code for money are wrong. There have been many bounties in the past, and they have not wiped out the many developers (me inclusive) who code as a hobby. Even with the gnome bounties in place, I still continued coding my application at the time for instance.


Anyway, at the end of the day, its not hard to implement, and it will do nothing but speed up development for highly wanted features (and maybe even organisations like gnome could use the money on spreading word about linux, or improving their hardware support).

its kinda cool having those "powered by ubuntu" stickers and take that "powered by windows" sticker off. what you guys think?

When clicking on the "computer" place in nautilus (Poste de travail in french)
We actually see a mess of icons, not at all ordered.
It would be GREAT to have subdivisions like "Hard Drives", "CD/DVD Drives" "Removable Devices" (or "external storage devices" or so) and "Network Places" or even more, and this with useful details
-For the hard drives and external storage devices: the filesystem of the different partitions that are displayed and a disk usage bar showing used and free space below the icon, possibility of setting the label of the partition by renaming the icon,etc.
-For cd/dvd drives, it could show if the tray is empty or not, if the disk is blank or used, with or without multisession,etc.
-For network places, maybe it could show samba shares on other computers or workgroups, and provide a tool for easily mounting shared folders with smbfs or so

Ubuntu is built on the philosophy that every user should be part of the community. Many users help out in various ways, however very few start programming because of the traditional difficulties.

1) Many people just don't know where to begin. Create a developer resource website and a "Beginner Developer Package" as mentioned in idea #4354.
The website should mostly contain articles aimed at new developers. It can link to external resources (e.g. the KDE and GNOME developer websites) for more advanced information.

Both the website and the developer package should be maintained by the general Linux community. Although the project will not be distro specific, The Ubuntu community will benefit greatly by sponsoring the project.

2) Bring back Canonical Code Bounties to motivate new developers.
Integrate them with community bounties as mentioned in idea 1295.

3) Create a Ubuntu Design Rewards website. (Idea 2961.)
Most developers coding for OS X and Windows have never even heard of Ubuntu. Mac OS X in particular has a costant stream of neat new apps. We need to capture their attention and bring them to Linux by way of contests and prizes.

In particular, Canonical should focus on attracting high school and university students. Google has been sucessful in bringing students to open source by using prizes and monetary incentives (GSoC and GHOP). We need to be more welcoming and do the same.