Re: [Usability] Content Separation in GNOME

[Phil Bull <philbull gmail com>]

Hi, first post on this list so I hope it's made it to the right place.

"(Nautilus -- or a program Nautilus delegated to -- could even present
the ~/Downloads folder window as a universal download manager. Browsers,
IM clients, and so on would still be responsible for doing the actual
downloading into the folder, but the folder window would provide a
unified interface for stopping and showing status of downloads. An API
would need to be invented for retrying/resuming and communicating
expected final file size, though.)"

Why
stop at just a Downloads folder? Why not have special nautilus views
for different types of document, like photos & music? For example,
when you browse to a folder containing music, it has the album cover
partially transparent in the background & displays the artist &
album name in a Rhythmbox-type hyperlink under the nautilus toolbar,
plus other useful data like album length.

If this was all done
by some sort of template system, new templates could be added to
folders by new apps, e.g. when you install Dia it asks if you want to
install a Dia view to the default Dia save location. With a nice
graphical template editor (think Glade) & an entry in Prefs/More
Prefs/File Management to decide which folder uses which template, this
could extend the customisability of the file manager greatly, by third
parties & the like. Programs like F-Spot could be implemented
entirely within the file manager.

The templates would need some
kind of programming behind them, so dynamic effects like hiding &
filtering documents could be achieved. _javascript_ or Python should
suffice for this kind of thing & if the templates were XML-based,
XQuery/XPath could be used.

To maintain some sort of interface consistancy, HIG guidelines for
templates would be required & GNOME-default templates should be
provided. But themes like Clearlooks could switch to their own views,
which work with the colour scheme of the windows & give a more
'integrated' feel to the file manager.

Just a couple of ideas, but it seems to me that going down this route would allow a lot more power when managing files.

-- 
Phil Bull
philbull.tk