Re: Gnome file selector

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

Those are definitely slick.  Not perfect (what is?) but very nice.

The important big thing *is* the API tho.  Giving simple functions like
you stated below is good, but more complex possible invocations (handing
them a list of acceptable/default MIME-types, for example, or specifying
a default directory, etc.) need to be available as well, to let apps be
flexible.

Also, a standard "preview" area should be available (if optional), since
a lot of apps (image editors in particular) like showing thumb-nails,
etc.

Other things to keep in mind are the nautilus single/double-click
rules.  I'd be annoyed if my file-dialogs needed double-click while my
file-manager/desktop only single-click.

And of course tab-completion better not stop working. ~,^

Also, what about gtk-functionality?  I had heard before that gtk can
make use of dynamically loaded modules internally; it would be nice to
have a simpler gtk-only dialog, but then allow the gnome dialog even in
gtk-only apps, if gnome is installed.  Altho the file dialog would then
have to know the app can't support gnome-vfs urls...

These are a good start UI wise, tho.  I checked out libegg last night to
see what progess has been made on that file-selector... it doesn't like
like it's gotten very far, for the UI, compared to this work.  I rather
like #4 from the 'old' versions best, altho the top-bar is a bit
cluttered (and I'm not sure what the point of the color-chooser/zoom
buttons really have in a file-dialog).

This is the kind of thing I'll happily go start patching my gnome/gtk
libs to test for.  ^,^

On Sun, 2002-10-06 at 13:58, MM wrote:
> Hi all,
> I've been working on a the file-dialogs. Mainly on the gnome usability
> list. But I need some volunteers :) ,to get this to work. Take a look
> here: http://home.wanadoo.nl/sbm/ 
> It still has some rough edges but the file and dir part is still
> copy/paste stuff in gimp (hmmmm...). Testing is rally hard that way.
> 
> There has been a lot of talk, flaming and complaining but something has
> to be done now IMHO. If you have some ideas.
> 
> I want to set up some CVS place somewhere for people to contribute. As I
> do not have much experience with this I really could use some help.
> 
> I also would like someone to head the architectural work. Someone with
> more experience with nautilus and GnomeVFS as my coding skills on this
> part are pretty minimal and would almost certainly result in a "peace of
> crap" ;). My idea is that someone writing an application should just be
> able to call gtk_open_file(); or gtk_save_file (); and be done with it.
> 
> I would really like to follow through on this one. Make something that
> works and see from there. If it doesn't change it.
> 
> Hoping to hear from you,
> MM
> 
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