Re: Side panel, plugins and image collection pane

[Jef Driesen <jefdriesen hotmail com>]

Lucas Rocha wrote:
> Considering the UI consistency problem described in one of my blog
> posts[1], I decided to make some (sort of) important change in UI. We
> will "officially" only support the image collection placed on the
> bottom side of the window (just like we have in the latest stable Eye
> of GNOME version). This means I'll remove the preferences tab for
> image collection positioning.
>
> Basically, this is because I couldn't think of a consistent way to
> provide a left-side panel which would be extended by plugins *and*
> being able to place the image collection on any window side.
>
> The functionality for placing the image collection on other window
> sides is still available in the "hidden" gconf key.
>
> I haven't commited yet but I'll only change my mind if someone comes
> with a very nice solution for this problem. :-P
>
> [1] http://blogs.gnome.org/lucasr/2007/07/04/python-in-the-eye/

How about a sidepane with a GtkNotebook and an api to add/remove tabs? 
Plugins can add tabs to the sidebar to provide new functionality like 
tagging, directory browsing,... And if the image collection needs to be 
on the same side as this sidepane, it can go into its own tab.

The UI for the sidepane can be made similar to nautilus (hidden 
GtkNotebook tabs and a dropdown list for switching) or like digikam 
(GtkNotebook with vertical tabs), or something else of course.