GMC feature requests

[TG <tg skynet be>]

I'm talking about mc-4.5.12 here, because the patch to 4.5.13 doesn't
seem to include the necessary icons for 4.5.13 and the latter doesn't
start up.

A bunch of features which would be, IMO, very useful in GMC...

1 - An error message or warning when you select a directory in the tree
you can't read or you don't have persmission to. The contents of the
right pane should show some info too, and NOT stick to the contents of
the previous directory.

2 - It is nice that you can sort the file listing by several file
properties, but I'd like to see a small arrow in the column header so
you can immediately see which properties is used to sort and in which
order.

3 - In the right pane, you have a nice popup menu when you right click
on a directory, why doesn't that happen when you click on a directory in
the tree on the left side?

4 - Inverting a selection ignores the directories. I think it shouldn't.
Selection of directories should be inverted too, maybe set is as option?

5 - Deleting a non-empty directory (with delete confirmation enabled)
prompts TWICE for confirmation. Is ONCE not good enough? Or else, could
we set an toggle for aliasing remove as a recursive remove?

6 - Copying or moving a file to an non-existant directory prompts
(option) for automatically creating that directory.

7 - Quickly hiding the directory tree, so you have more space to view
your files. It can be done using a small toggle button somewhere above
the tree (see M$ Explorer in W98) and somewhere in the View menu so you
can bind a accelerator key to it.

8 - Dragging a directory from the right pane in the tree on the left
side works, but NOT dragging files or directories from the right into
another directory in the right pane. Quite obvious IMO.

9 - Having an option to display permissions using octals instead of
drwxr-xr-x strings. Just for saving view space. :-)

10 - Split the statusbar into two parts, just like the directory and
it's contents. Beneath the contents the amount of selected files and
bytes (or kilobytes), just like it already is in 4.5.12 and beneath the
tree, some info about the selected directory (probably size, maybe owner
and permissions).

11 - Add a kind of jump to the location bar with "Change dir" menu entry
somewhere so you can again bind a very nice accelerator key to it. No
need to move your mouse anymore. :-)

12 - Communication between the filter view and location bar. If you set
the filter to *.html the location bar should reflect that status. And it
would be nice if you can set the filter entering something like
/home/winger/public_html/*.html in the location bar manually.

13 - The ability to set your $HOME directory as root of the left
directory tree. It's cool when most of the files you need are located in
$HOME, not when you always need to browse through the entire system of
course. Or maybe the possiblity to fire up gmc -root <mydir> which uses
mydir as root.

14 - Split out search, view and edit functions out of GMC and use
seperate gnome programs instead. Or do I have a wrong view on CORBA?

15 - (This is already mentionned by someone else.) Using multiple
columns in the brief view.

This was a long list and I'm afraid there won't be enough time to get it
all done before gnome-1.0, but as long no major parts are implemented,
I'm likely to stick to plain, old mc in a xterm.

Keep up the good work!

Wing Tung

--
member of the dutch translation team