This bug is more than two years long, and still nothing has been done.
Maybe we forgot that the main focus of Ubuntu is to be simple and
intuitive. In this light, the empty "Create Document" menu is
frustrating for standard and new users (and even for advanced users, as
it seems according to many of the comments in this bug) and we should do
something to fix it. We can fix it quickly first, and then take the time
to re-thing about its expected feature in a second time.
So, as I see it, there is two succesives steps to do: an easy step to
quickly fix this bug, and a more extensive approach to rework the
feature itself.
* The Quick & Easy step:
----------------------------------
It would consists in using the current mecanism of Nautilus, and we just
need to create of a few empty files in ~/Templates to populate the
currently empty menu and fix this bug.
We could add inside ~/Templates some symlinks to /usr/share/default-
templates/{empty_files}. Doing so would still allow powerusers to add
their own templates/empty files next to these symlinks, and even remove
them.
The few default empty files to populate the "Create Document" menu could be:
- LibreOffice Writer.odt
- LibreOffice Calc.ods
- LibreOffice Impress.odp
And of course keep the current "Empty File"
Adding an option "Edit My Templates..." which would open Nautilus at
~/Templates is also a very nice idea.
We should also think of the translation of those entries. But using the
application's name for the files may help to avoid this problem (I don't
know about that, but at least on my French system, Writer, Calc and
Impress are used as-is and are not translated -- wether its a good think
or not is another problem)
This quick fix requires:
- to store a few templates in Nautilus package (or in its own
"ubuntu-nautilus-templates" package as suggested) located in
/usr/share/default-templates
- a mecanism to add the symlinks to users' ~/Templates directory if present
(they should be added only once, because users may want to remove them)
* The Long & Best step:
----------------------------------
(it requires a new bug to discuss and work on it)
bra10n and Vish's points of view are very correct in term of user
ergonomy IMHO. Nobody just wants to create a file without editing it (do
you?). Therefore the right-click menu would be much better if it could
be used to launch applications pre-opened with the chosen template
(would it be an empty file or a real template) and save the file (in the
current location) only after user has made changes and/or choose to save
it.
Contrary to the Quick&Easy fix, this one do absolutely requires a non-
hidden ~/Templates directory because the files inside it would be "real"
templates made by the user for her own needs.
When viewing ~/Templates in Nautilus, it should display an info-bar
(like when viewing the Trash, as suggested Martin Lettner) to notify the
user that she can add her own template-files here in order to use them
from the right-click menu.
Also, we should not forget that some applications have their own
template system. For LibreOffice it is in
~/.libreoffice/3/user/template. This directory uses "Open Document
Template" format, and because of that cannot be used as-is for the
Quick&Easy approach, but could be incorporated in this Long&Best
thinkings.
Anyway, all this Long&Best approach is not the answer to this very bug
(which is only: "Create Document" Templates difficult to use). It seems
to me that it's a new feature and requires its own thinking thread/bug.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/Karmic/NautilusDocumentTemplates
seems to be unattended (nothing done from 2009?)
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/372132
Title:
"Create Document" Templates difficult to use
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