Re: New Wallpaper Properties Dialog

[Mark Finlay <sisob tuxfamily org>]

Hey Jeff,

> > The main feature is the storage of meta-data and the list of available
> > wallpapers, in an XML file in ~/.gnome2/. For each individual image, the
> > filename, a descriptive name, image scaling type, background color type,
> > and background colors are all stored. There is no DTD yet, but one will be
> > written for the next release.
> 
> What is the metadata for? Why not simply show image thumbnails in known
> system directories, as well as a list of user-chosen images?

The reason we choose to store metadata for images is mostly to do with
the fact that for any given image only one or two of the scaling types
make sense, and for translucent images it's useful to have a background
color/background type associated with it.

This will have two major benefits IMHO:
1. For the default wallpapers we ship with Gnome(/Ximian/Redhat etc...)
we can choose the scaling type, and for the transparencies we ship, we
can choose nice background colors to go with them.

2. When a user adds an image/transparency they only have to set the
scaling/background colour once.

> When choosing an image for wallpaper, it is unlikely that the user will care
> to give the image a special name, 

This I do agree with. A picture tells a thousand words and a thumbnail
tells a hundred - no need to give things names.

I think that dobey's dialog really rocks, but I think the it would be
much better if the thumbnails were larger and there was no meta-data
displayed alongside them - then maybe we could have a nice 3x3 grid. But
I'm not sure if I'll be able to convince dobey of this :)

> figure out its file size (particularly in
> K, I would understand having the size in dimensions, but even that seems
> like overkill), know what kind of image format it is, or even care what the
> file name is. Surely the primary use case is "go in, find something pretty
> and make it so", nothing more...?

I think that having this data in a tooltip would be useful. It probably
fits into the frequent by few/infrequent by few catagory. Massive PNG
backgrounds will slow your pc down, while small jpegs will be much nice
to your cpu. And the resolution will affect the quality of the scalled
image.

-- 
Mark Finlay 
Computer Science Student

E-Mail:	sisob_AT_tuxfamily_DOT_org
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