File selection dialog changes

[Erik Andersen <andersen inconnect com>]

On Tue, 15 Dec 1998, Jeff Garzik wrote:

> Erik Andersen wrote:
> > Hypothetically suppose [grin] I've never been very fond of the file selection 
> > dialog box.  I'd like to change it to look and act more like the one found 
> > under Windows NT, which I think is rather nice.  Lets suppose I code this 
> > change up as a drop in replacement.  Is that permitted if the file selection
> > API stays the same?
> 
> Recognizing that I don't speak from any position of authority... :)
> That's probably a good candidate for a pre-5pm change.
> 
> 	Jeff
> 

Hmm.  I had to pull an all nighter at work last night, so maybe I can 
get off work early today and code something up.  Mostly I like how under
NT, the CFileDialog allows you to right click an any file and then 
open it, add it to a zip file, change its security settings, cut it, 
copy it, delete it, rename it, create a new directory, change the amount
of detail shown about the files, create a symlink (NT "shortcuts"), or 
send the file via mail, etc.  It does this without adding in extra buttons 
to clutter the normal case, while still acting as a mini file manager. 
The things that the CFileDialog can do on a right click are defined by the
context of the click (if it is on the background, a directory, or a file),
and the functionality is provided via a COM interface.

What would be nice would be a CORBA interface allowing arbitrary file 
actions to be plugged in for new stuff.  Clearly there is no way I can 
finish things that far...  Heck, I'm probably not going to get away from 
work till late again...  Hmmph.  Any leeway on the freeze?  Anybody want 
to work on this?  I can provide screen shots galore if anybody wants to
take a shot at this.

As a pointer -- do I just need to change gtk+/gtk/gtkfilesel.c, or
do you know of any other stuff that needs to be done?  As far as I know,
gnome-libs/libgnomeui/gnome-file-entry.c seems to be doing something
else entirely, right?

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen   Web:    http://www.inconnect.com/~andersen/ 
                   email:  andersee@debian.org
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