Re: Regarding Nautilus scripts

[Mark Roach <mrroach okmaybe com>]

On Mon, 2003-06-09 at 14:30, Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote:
> >   1) Nautilus Scripts vs. Mime Activation Plugins ("Addons")
> 
> Scripts are just scripts. They are neither robust nor extensible.
> MIME Activation Plugins are ok, as long as you don't have to code "natilus
> code". The API should be simple. From what I read here, you talk about
> plugins like Seahorse and Medusa which are very much integrated to Nautilus
> and developers need to know the Nautilus API or quite a great deal about how
> the whole gnome universe works.
> I am only talking about a very simple API where a developer can simply get a
> list of the files/dir selected, do the job it  was created to do and only if
> necessary, send back to Nautilus the output (e.g. in a File Selection
> addon).

Hi, Eugenia. I am just one of the many lurkers on this list :-), but
this discussion interested me so I took a look at how file roller
implements its mime plugin and was surprised at how simple it is. You
might want to check it out (file-roller-component.[h,c]).

It appears to simply register its existence with the .server file that
has been mentioned (once you take out the translations it is more
legible), and then 200 or so lines of code that simply receive a list of
files, generates a command line and calls file roller. I am *far* from
being a "real" developer but I think even I could take that code and
build an mp3 editor plugin and the like from it.

I agree that it would be very cool if you could pass back a "selection"
to nautilus or even simple commands like copy/paste and I think someone
mentioned in the past that atk would somehow make that possible.

Anyhow, thanks for the interesting discussion.


-Mark Roach