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A short Baobab UI review

Tuesday, August 15, 2006 ★ 23:06 ★ Category Gnome

The Baobab Disk Usage Analyzer is part of gnome-utils these days, which means it will be shipped in the upcoming Gnome 2.16 release. I had never tried the program until tonight. Several UI problems have occurred to me, so I decided to write a mini UI review for it. The linked screenshot contains some numbers that I refer to in this article.

Baobab screenshot. Click to enlarge.

Baobab screenshot. Click to enlarge.

First of all: what’s the reason Baobab needs a tabbed view (see 1)? The two tabs take a lot of space for no good reason. I don’t really see why the file search (which is a confusing name, since the menu contains a find item too) shouldn’t open in a new window (spatial). The tabs do not respond to the usual keyboard shortcut. Filed as bug 351530.

Why is the file search needed anyway? Nautilus searches in files too, and so does Beagle. Some integration work could be done.

Baobab features a stop button on the toolbar (see 2), but it doesn’t respond to Escape and has not equivalent menu item (preferably in the Analyzer menu item) either. Filed as bug 351532.

The toolbar contains a checkbox, for no good reason (see 3). It should be hidden in the preferences window with a explanatory tooltip (this is not an obvious setting for most users). Filed as bug 351534.

Hidden files are shown by default, which might be a good thing (see 4). However, I do think they need a distinct colour. Filed as bug 351535.

The treeview uses a lot of bold fonts, while there’s no reason to do that (see 5). Filed as bug 351538.

The colored bars in the treeview are only shown after scanning is done, it seems (see 6). Why not show them in a disabled (faded) state until they can be painted? Hiding/unhiding widgets results in a confusing UI. Filed as bug 351540.

Ctrl-O doesn’t open the Open directory dialog. Filed as bug 351542. (update: yay, fixed)

The red or green flashing circle is ugly. I guess a throbber widget (like Epiphany has) at the right side of the toolbar is better. (see 7). Filed as bug 351543.

What use has the status bar (see 8)? There’s a status line at the top too (see 9). Having two places with status information is confusing. The statusbar has too much padding as well, causing the resize grippy to look ugly… Filed as bug 351544.

If the treeview had sortable column headers, they could be used to explain the columns: path, size, percentage, number of objects (see 10). They could be used for sorting too, obsoleting the toolbar buttons and the menu item. Filed as bug 351545.

Scan home folder should be the default action. It should also be the first toolbar button (and menu item). Perhaps Alt-Home should work as well as a keyboard shortcut. Filed as bug 351546.

Please don’t take any of these complaints personally. I’m not trying to attack anyone. Baobab is a useful tool for a lot of people and it should definitely stay in gnome-utils (some people beg to differ).

If you want to vent your opinion about a particular issue I raised, please do so in Bugzilla. This keeps the discussion centralized. Thanks.

We would all love an even more rocking Gnome desktop. Wouldn’t you?

Update: The rocking Baobab people have fixed most of the issues outlined above. Rock on!