alt Hacker NewsTrying to understand the original Windows 11 context menu diagram as someone who hasn't used Windows 11 is surprisingly difficult. By contrast, Gnome 51's context menu (or earlier versions as far back as I remember) for a file/folder are unambiguous and easy to understand.
At the top of the Windows 11 context menu are some small icons without text for high usage actions which I assume are:
1. select-for-moving (cut), perhaps Gnome's "Move to..."
2. duplicate-in-place-with-number-appended-to-duplicate-filename or select-for-copying (copy), perhaps Gnome's "Copy to..."
3. something to do with the clipboard--maybe copy contents to clipboard
4. something to do with text entry--maybe rename the file/folder, perhaps Gnome's "Rename..."
5. share via social media applications or cloud file sharing applications, or move the file/folder locally perhaps Gnome's "Move to..."
6. move to recycle bin (delete)
Menu options with text are unambiguous for "Open", "Open with", "Compress to ZIP file", "Properties", although Gnome will state "Open with {name_of_default_app}" to make it clear exactly how a file will be opened without having to guess.
I guess "Copy as path" might just copy the full filesystem path to the clipboard. I can't remember the last time I wanted to do that.
I guess "Always keep on this device" prevents the file/folder being backed up to some cloud storage provider. I'd rather open up an application dedicated to cloud storage backups and be able to review current backup options there all in one place for all types of data/files.
The "Free up space" option I'm less clear on--will a local application pop up and suggest what I can delete within the folder, will a cloud storage provider application pop up and suggest the file not be synchronised with the local device and only be kept in cloud storage, etc.
The bottom option "Show more options" is not expandable so I assume there are so many other options an entire new window is needed to display them all. Maybe it'll give me useful but rarely used options from a list of hundreds available, such as "count how many words are in this file" for text files...?
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I use "copy as path" all the time. It's good for if you have scripts and want a program in a different folder to launch them (e.g AutoHotKey, Task Scheduler).
TBH while the menu has glaring issues (half of it is basically an ad for cloud storage), your complaints boil down to "I don't like it because I'm not familiar with it" which is not valid critique, and especially shouldn't be coming from a Linux user if you want Windows users to switch - they don't like Linux because they're not familiar with it.
"Always keep on this device" / "Free up space" only make sense when you understand the "Desktop" and "Document" is now backed by cloud -- the file you have on your local computer is just a cache.
The former meant it have higher priority in caching, the latter is just evicting from cache immediately.