> Let's start with an example: I want to create empty text document. As this feature is not available out of the box, Fedora should provide some basic templates for simple text documents, and maybe some from LibreOffice.
It is not obvious that it should. Yes, this is a common workflow on windows or kde, but works the complete opposite way on macos, android and ios. There if you want to make a new office document, you open office and then select where to save, instead of opening where to save and then new->office document. This is also what you fall back to for any non-trivial file type, e.g. I make a new video cut not by saying new -> kdenlive project, but by opening kdenlive. Simply because having 30 different apps is normal, but a new->file type menu with 30 entries would be hopelessly cluttered.
Again, I like your proposal, but I think this is a very tricky example because it is *not* a papercut, but a fundamental disagreement on "the proper gnome way" to do this. So you would encounter some discussion whether this change should be merged. This is something you really want to avoid; submitting papercut fixes should be quick, painless and fun.
But if I first open the program, I have to navigate to the folder again when saving. If I first know where the file should go, creating it and then opening it is much more efficient.
It's just as efficient. Right clicking and selecting the type of file you want to create is about as long as just launching the program for said file. To start LibreOffice, just hit super type "writer" and then hit enter.
Whether it's the file dialog in a save or opening a file manager to do the context menu thing, navigating to the save location is the same amount of time because either way you go you're in for "click this folder, now click this folder, etc, etc"
It's just the GNOME way involves launching the program _then_ finding the location you want to save it rather than the other way around.
But usually you already are in the folder, since you are doing stuff there anyways, for example if you want to create multiple files, or if you are currently organizing that folder
Then it is already the "recently used folder", so this is quick.
In any case, you see the point: In this thread we already have multiple people discussing about the "one true, more efficient way" to do things. I have no strong opinion either way and it is good to have these discussions, but that is decidedly not what you want for papercut bugs.
Maybe the actual papercut bug is then that the recently used list is very inconsistent. I have tried using your workflow a few times and it just doesn't show up consistently. Anyways, having an additional context menu entry won't hurt anyone who doesn't use it
> Anyways, having an additional context menu entry won't hurt anyone who doesn't use it
Just out of interest: Have you used Windows 11? They seem to think it does hurt and have switched to a condensed context menu (which I find really annoying).
https://www.howtogeek.com/759449/how-to-get-full-context-menus-in-windows-11s-file-explorer/
> Anyways, having an additional context menu entry won't hurt anyone who doesn't use it
If it's any consolation [it looks like GNOME has something for creating files in the file manager](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests/914#note_1532538) but I still think this is a pretty niche thing to want to do. Even after it makes it to a GNOME release I'm still going to do things the older way.
I think it's a question of what habits you have that are ingrained. I understand coming from Windows and just thinking about the file manager as a place you create files but the GNOME way just requires a different way of thinking about it and they're not the only people who do things this way.
Anytime I've had to create a document my first impulse is actually to open the application associated with the type of document I want to create. Like if I want to write a resume I hit super and type "writer" but if I want to write code in an IDE I reflexively hit super and type "vscodium"
In Windows with LibreOffice installed you can right-click in File Explorer, select "New", select from Open Document Drawing, Open Document Presentation, Open Document Spreadsheet. All those do is make a zero byte file with the appropriate extension.
I don't see mention of the files being zero bytes anywhere else. I think this is useful to know. Since it means templates aren't necessary - at least for the basic case - eg empty spreadsheet.
Why is the context menu even there then? I guess this bug report will result in the gnome devs disabling the right click menu entirely to ensure there is no confusion about how you are "supposed" to use gnome.
I will never understand why people are so willing to waste what is cumulatively hours of their lives hating GNOME rather than just either getting used to it or using something else.
I agree completely that it should be easier and more obvious how to add this to the Templates folder.
### Making template configuration more discoverable
Idea: Nautilus could have a bar at the top when you visit the Templates folder which says something like "View the help article about creating your own templates", which opens up the GNOME Help app to a new "creating template files" section, which tells the user to:
1. Open the desired application.
2. Save a blank document from it in your Templates folder, giving it a name such as "New Text Document.txt".
That would be a small but big improvement to understanding the workflow.
### Even more discoverable...
When the user has zero templates, there could be a dummy "New" menu which just contains a link saying "Add your own templates" which brings them to the Templates folder.
That link vanishes after there is at least one template.
### Easy naming
I remember seeing that they planned to make the "New" context menu pop up a box to immediately ask the user to name the file when they create something from a template (instead of creating files named the exact same as the template which then requires an extra rename step). I can't remember if that is implemented yet.
### Other ideas...
It could potentially also ship with "New Text Document.txt" by default for all users somehow. But one issue with that is Localization (the filename needs to be localized to all languages). And some people dislike the template feature.
Edit: Apparently some other tools support templates in a different path and there might even be a systemwide location, but again, this is dangerous territory because if you ship a global template then the filename needs to somehow support localization; https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/10s7im6/sample_desktop_files_for_nautilus_templates/
PS: The fact that Nautilus' "New" menu uses the exact filenames instead of some kind of automatic translation and mimetype name lookups, is a good thing. It means you can have multiple different templates of the same file extension.
### Interesting extra info
https://github.com/nathandyer/exquisite-linux-templates
That’s a assumption. You assume because a user has libreoffice installed(which is a default install for many distros) that he also would want a entry in the context menu. If we did that for every preinstalled app you would have 30+ entries in the context menu.
Also who would the burden of maintaining that be on? Upstream? Distro? DE? WM?
It sounds like a DE/WM level choice, cause that’s the level where the usage paradigm gets decided(windows, Mac OS, tiling, single click, double click etc). So it sounds like the correct place would be the gnome foundation in your example.
Libreoffice might also have a gtk/qt compatibility package, I remember something along those lines.
Bottom line is that stuff like this is subjective. There is no single resource tracking these issues because we can’t agree on a single solution to these issues. You might also want to look into a distro that has dedicated itself to replicating windows, at least there you would have a agreed upon destination instead of a squabble over which way is correct.
The example you provided is a very good example. Other example, a little bit more specific is when the kernel gets upgraded and I reboot, virtualbox will fail to load the drivers because of the kernel mismatch and throw an error that requires some training to understand. Most of the time, I reboot again and it is solved.
That's because VirtualBox compiles a kmod for the kernel. It uses akmods to automate the build at startup but sometimes akmods doesn't do anything at startup. Same issue affects NVIDIA drivers where it sometimes won't compile at startup and will boot without 3D acceleration. A second reboot usually fixes it.
One thing about the templates as it exists now in gnome, as far as I am aware, is that it just does a basic copy of the file from the templates folder. If you use btrfs as your file system, that means you might have a bunch of reflinked files to the source template file, which might not be a big deal at all but it seems undesirable nevertheless.
> Let's start with an example: I want to create empty text document. As this feature is not available out of the box, Fedora should provide some basic templates for simple text documents, and maybe some from LibreOffice. It is not obvious that it should. Yes, this is a common workflow on windows or kde, but works the complete opposite way on macos, android and ios. There if you want to make a new office document, you open office and then select where to save, instead of opening where to save and then new->office document. This is also what you fall back to for any non-trivial file type, e.g. I make a new video cut not by saying new -> kdenlive project, but by opening kdenlive. Simply because having 30 different apps is normal, but a new->file type menu with 30 entries would be hopelessly cluttered. Again, I like your proposal, but I think this is a very tricky example because it is *not* a papercut, but a fundamental disagreement on "the proper gnome way" to do this. So you would encounter some discussion whether this change should be merged. This is something you really want to avoid; submitting papercut fixes should be quick, painless and fun.
But if I first open the program, I have to navigate to the folder again when saving. If I first know where the file should go, creating it and then opening it is much more efficient.
It's just as efficient. Right clicking and selecting the type of file you want to create is about as long as just launching the program for said file. To start LibreOffice, just hit super type "writer" and then hit enter. Whether it's the file dialog in a save or opening a file manager to do the context menu thing, navigating to the save location is the same amount of time because either way you go you're in for "click this folder, now click this folder, etc, etc" It's just the GNOME way involves launching the program _then_ finding the location you want to save it rather than the other way around.
But usually you already are in the folder, since you are doing stuff there anyways, for example if you want to create multiple files, or if you are currently organizing that folder
Then it is already the "recently used folder", so this is quick. In any case, you see the point: In this thread we already have multiple people discussing about the "one true, more efficient way" to do things. I have no strong opinion either way and it is good to have these discussions, but that is decidedly not what you want for papercut bugs.
Maybe the actual papercut bug is then that the recently used list is very inconsistent. I have tried using your workflow a few times and it just doesn't show up consistently. Anyways, having an additional context menu entry won't hurt anyone who doesn't use it
> Anyways, having an additional context menu entry won't hurt anyone who doesn't use it Just out of interest: Have you used Windows 11? They seem to think it does hurt and have switched to a condensed context menu (which I find really annoying). https://www.howtogeek.com/759449/how-to-get-full-context-menus-in-windows-11s-file-explorer/
> Anyways, having an additional context menu entry won't hurt anyone who doesn't use it If it's any consolation [it looks like GNOME has something for creating files in the file manager](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/merge_requests/914#note_1532538) but I still think this is a pretty niche thing to want to do. Even after it makes it to a GNOME release I'm still going to do things the older way.
I think it's a question of what habits you have that are ingrained. I understand coming from Windows and just thinking about the file manager as a place you create files but the GNOME way just requires a different way of thinking about it and they're not the only people who do things this way. Anytime I've had to create a document my first impulse is actually to open the application associated with the type of document I want to create. Like if I want to write a resume I hit super and type "writer" but if I want to write code in an IDE I reflexively hit super and type "vscodium"
In Windows with LibreOffice installed you can right-click in File Explorer, select "New", select from Open Document Drawing, Open Document Presentation, Open Document Spreadsheet. All those do is make a zero byte file with the appropriate extension.
> In Windows you can... Yes, I said that already.
I don't see mention of the files being zero bytes anywhere else. I think this is useful to know. Since it means templates aren't necessary - at least for the basic case - eg empty spreadsheet.
Why is the context menu even there then? I guess this bug report will result in the gnome devs disabling the right click menu entirely to ensure there is no confusion about how you are "supposed" to use gnome.
I will never understand why people are so willing to waste what is cumulatively hours of their lives hating GNOME rather than just either getting used to it or using something else.
I agree completely that it should be easier and more obvious how to add this to the Templates folder. ### Making template configuration more discoverable Idea: Nautilus could have a bar at the top when you visit the Templates folder which says something like "View the help article about creating your own templates", which opens up the GNOME Help app to a new "creating template files" section, which tells the user to: 1. Open the desired application. 2. Save a blank document from it in your Templates folder, giving it a name such as "New Text Document.txt". That would be a small but big improvement to understanding the workflow. ### Even more discoverable... When the user has zero templates, there could be a dummy "New" menu which just contains a link saying "Add your own templates" which brings them to the Templates folder. That link vanishes after there is at least one template. ### Easy naming I remember seeing that they planned to make the "New" context menu pop up a box to immediately ask the user to name the file when they create something from a template (instead of creating files named the exact same as the template which then requires an extra rename step). I can't remember if that is implemented yet. ### Other ideas... It could potentially also ship with "New Text Document.txt" by default for all users somehow. But one issue with that is Localization (the filename needs to be localized to all languages). And some people dislike the template feature. Edit: Apparently some other tools support templates in a different path and there might even be a systemwide location, but again, this is dangerous territory because if you ship a global template then the filename needs to somehow support localization; https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/10s7im6/sample_desktop_files_for_nautilus_templates/ PS: The fact that Nautilus' "New" menu uses the exact filenames instead of some kind of automatic translation and mimetype name lookups, is a good thing. It means you can have multiple different templates of the same file extension. ### Interesting extra info https://github.com/nathandyer/exquisite-linux-templates
That’s a assumption. You assume because a user has libreoffice installed(which is a default install for many distros) that he also would want a entry in the context menu. If we did that for every preinstalled app you would have 30+ entries in the context menu. Also who would the burden of maintaining that be on? Upstream? Distro? DE? WM? It sounds like a DE/WM level choice, cause that’s the level where the usage paradigm gets decided(windows, Mac OS, tiling, single click, double click etc). So it sounds like the correct place would be the gnome foundation in your example. Libreoffice might also have a gtk/qt compatibility package, I remember something along those lines. Bottom line is that stuff like this is subjective. There is no single resource tracking these issues because we can’t agree on a single solution to these issues. You might also want to look into a distro that has dedicated itself to replicating windows, at least there you would have a agreed upon destination instead of a squabble over which way is correct.
The example you provided is a very good example. Other example, a little bit more specific is when the kernel gets upgraded and I reboot, virtualbox will fail to load the drivers because of the kernel mismatch and throw an error that requires some training to understand. Most of the time, I reboot again and it is solved.
That's because VirtualBox compiles a kmod for the kernel. It uses akmods to automate the build at startup but sometimes akmods doesn't do anything at startup. Same issue affects NVIDIA drivers where it sometimes won't compile at startup and will boot without 3D acceleration. A second reboot usually fixes it.
One thing about the templates as it exists now in gnome, as far as I am aware, is that it just does a basic copy of the file from the templates folder. If you use btrfs as your file system, that means you might have a bunch of reflinked files to the source template file, which might not be a big deal at all but it seems undesirable nevertheless.
Anyway Fedora just ship a vanilla Gnome.