Why is it that to simply copy a file in Nautilus, you need to click ‘Copy’, then ‘Paste’, and then have to rename the file (or open up another window and navigate somewhere so you can drag’n’drop it). It seems unnatural to me. Why must we have to know about and use the clipboard for such a simple operation?

What I reckon is that on right-clicking a file you should get ‘Copy to…’ and ‘Move to…’ options, which pop up a standard filechooser dialog, prefilled with the selected file’s name and location. I think that would be simpler and more intuitive than the current method. Shame I don’t have the time or skillz to knock up a patch at the moment.

I had this revelation whilst trying to simply copy ’timesheet-4005.xml’ to ’timesheet-4007.xml’ in GNOME without resorting to a terminal. It made me realise that it’s actually easier to manage files in Windows than in GNOME as it is now. GNOME seems to have tried to copy Windows behaviour, but actually made it come out worse. Several people I have convinced to use GNOME (either on their PC or one of mine) have asked me ‘why do I have to rename the file seperately after copying it?’. The answer is ‘I don’t know’.