Re: some thoughts..

[Timo Sirainen <aaaaaa sicom fi>]

> > [fm stuff]
> 
> I won't comment much, someone else probably will, but I'll just say that I
> don't know why everyone's main concern with the file manager is memory
> use. If you are worried about memory, use mv/rm/ls, or text-mode mc. gmc
> is only 800K, anyway. The point of it is usability. Usability concerns
> should be foremost. 

gmc is NOW only 800K, but how much is it after few months? That's what I'm
worried about, that after adding all great things in it it would eat megs
of memory. And how about usability with computers with low memory? I 
really would like GNOME to work with my other 16MB computer, KDE was
totally useless with it. And I think all things could be done working with
low memory usage while still being very usable.

> gmc also already does a lot of what you mentioned, and in general is
> already small, fast, and versatile. It's really a great program, I think,
> except that the Gnome GUI is still too much like regular mc and not enough
> like other GUI file managers. Except for the Gnome cosmetics its code is
> already well-tested and debugged. That's why it was used.

Hm. Ok, but I don't like it's current interface .. looks too complicated
(probably because of filter and those arrows beside "up" button) and the
"standard" big icon view is missing so I haven't tried using it much yet.

> > Should the desktop icon handling belong to file manager? Unless some icon
> > is really clicked and file manager window is displayed, I think it's a
> > waste of memory to keep it sitting there at background..
> 
> 800K, and if you're not using it it's swapped out - big deal. If you have
> a separate icon process it will have to duplicate code and have some kind
> of interface to gmc, resulting in more total memory if you do click on an
> icon.

Hm.. Oh well, maybe it is better, don't know. but just thought that if
gmc is going to grow a lot and it isn't going to be used while running
some app that eats lots of memory gmc would be useless there..

> And why are you going to have icons if you never click on them?

Icons can start also other things than file manager..

> Memory is really not a big issue on Unix if you aren't using the program.
> I've had StarOffice running unused for a few days, and don't even notice,
> even though it's probably around 20 megs at least. It just swaps out.

But what if part of program is running? Is Linux really that intelligent
that it keeps only the necessary code in memory?