The deepin File Manager has gained users' favor with its unique design. However, there is still room for improvement in user experience. To address this, we organized this interview to delve into its design philosophy, the challenges users face, and future development plans. We aim to provide valuable information to users while offering the product team a platform to showcase their work and communicate with the community.

Q1：

Recently, users have been actively discussing the animation effects in the file manager. Will there be optimizations, such as adding an option to disable animations?

File Manager Team:

Moderate animations are a valuable feature for both applications and operating systems. Popular platforms like Windows and macOS have smooth and lively animations that enhance user experience.

Starting from deepin 23, our design and development teams introduced animations, such as the transition effects between directories in the file manager, to improve operational experiences. After release, we noticed user feedback indicating that animations can rarely be perfect from the outset. They require iterative improvements based on feedback and usage scenarios.

For users who enjoy animations, we will continue refining these effects to enhance their experience. For those who prefer not to use them, we’ve added system-level configurations to disable animations. Some users have shared relevant tutorials in the community (e.g., File Manager Directory Transition Animation Disable Method – Forum – Deepin Technology (deepin.org.cn)). Users can also adjust the linear effects, animation amplitude, and duration of page transitions in the file manager to suit their preferences.

Regarding an option to toggle animations, we’re considering integrating animation controls into the system’s visual effect layers or providing direct toggles within the file manager in future updates.

Q2：

The file manager’s ease of use has been widely praised by users. What measures have you taken to ensure its usability?

File Manager Team:

Primarily, deepin’s user base largely consists of individuals transitioning from Windows. Maintaining operational logic similar to Windows Explorer significantly lowers the learning curve for new users.

For instance, Nautilus File Manager de-emphasizes the concept of internal disks, allowing users to access all data directly through directories, assuming they don’t need to worry about which internal disk the files are stored on. In contrast, the deepin File Manager adopts Windows’ approach of emphasizing disks, clearly separating system and data disks when the file manager is first opened. This alleviates the concern among ordinary users that reinstalling the system could overwrite or lose their data.

When version 20 was released, users pointed out that the file manager’s sidebar displayed six fixed default directories that could not be hidden, pushing the favorites list to the bottom and reducing access efficiency. In version 23, we completely restructured the sidebar logic, introducing features such as collapsing, reordering, and visibility controls to improve quick access to files. These improvements were a result of collaborative contributions from the community.

We continue to pay close attention to community suggestions for improving the file manager. Feedback that genuinely impacts user experience is actively added to our requirements pool. In future iterations, users will see their suggestions implemented.

Q3：

What are your plans to improve the file manager’s startup speed, copy speed, and directory switching speed? Could you elaborate on these plans?

File Manager Team:

Speed is a fundamental metric for any file manager, and we acknowledge that there is room for improvement in certain areas.

Regarding copy speed, especially for external devices, the process involves both copying and syncing. Most file managers or command-line tools indicate that copying is complete after the operation, but if you eject the USB drive immediately, the data might not be fully written, resulting in incomplete files. Alternatively, ejecting the device directly from the file manager might require a lengthy synchronization process, impacting user experience.

We are committed to continuously improving the file manager’s performance while balancing interactions and performance. We encourage users to stay tuned for updates on these enhancements.

Q4：

During the development of the current file manager, what was the greatest challenge you encountered? How did you address it?

File Manager Team:

Many feature requests stem from users’ expectations based on their experiences with Windows. To meet these expectations, we took innovative steps from scratch. For instance, Windows users are accustomed to using the UDF file system for disc burning. However, Linux environments lack robust open-source components to support this feature effectively.

Thus, we decided to develop this functionality in-house. By thoroughly analyzing the structure of the UDF file system and the basic commands for disc burning, we successfully implemented additional burning capabilities for Windows UDF discs on the Linux platform—an industry-first achievement. While this feature may not be frequently used by community users, it provides significant benefits for other user groups.

As a well-known domestic open-source system provider, we do not shy away from leveraging open-source components to solve existing problems. However, developing an original feature from scratch, despite its challenges, offers a sense of accomplishment far beyond that of simply implementing a pre-existing open-source solution.

Q5：

Users have been actively discussing the file manager recently. What are your thoughts, and is there anything you’d like to convey to users?

File Manager Team:

As a core component of the operating system, the file manager receives frequent user feedback due to its high usage. Our team closely monitors these comments, and once issues are confirmed, we quickly establish communication channels with users to reproduce, analyze, and resolve the problems, continuously improving the file manager’s usability and performance.

For example, on November 18, 2024, we noted community feedback regarding the desktop wallpaper menu options. We promptly submitted a modification to differentiate the menu contents, which has since been merged into the codebase and will be reflected in future updates.

Many issues cannot be reproduced in testing environments due to the limited variety of devices used for development and testing. To ensure broader coverage, we encourage users to provide feedback and their reproduction environments to help us analyze and locate issues more effectively. (Attaching screenshots or detailed information, such as app version numbers, will greatly helps us build reproduction environments and expedite problem resolution.)

Lastly, we warmly welcome users with programming skills to submit PRs to our code repository to fix bugs or propose issues. We will thoroughly review submissions and consider merging user contributions. (Repository link provided.)

Q6：

As developers of the file manager, what are your goals for its future?

File Manager Team:

For developers, seeing an application developed by their team being used in users’ daily lives is undoubtedly a source of pride.

We will continue to focus on enhancing the file manager’s user experience, making it the top priority for product iterations. While there are still areas for improvement, we will persistently strive to perfect the application.

Here, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the deepin file manager team for taking the time to participate in this interview. Through this conversation, we not only learned about deepin File Manager's efforts in user experience and technological innovation, but also looked forward to the future of the product. We believe that with the continuous progress and improvement of the deepin operating system, file managers will bring users a more convenient and efficient user experience.

We look forward to continuing to follow the development of deepin file manager in the future and witnessing its growth and transformation with our users.

You are also welcome to ask your questions or needs in the comment section, or which product team would you like to see next for an interview?
Looking forward to hearing everyone's voices!