[gthumb-list] gthumb feedback

[Jef Driesen <jefdriesen hotmail com>]

Hi,

I really like the new gthumb. And I have a couple of suggestions to 
improve it even further.

1. Extension manager and preferences

Is there a good reason why the extension manager is a separate window? 
How about moving it to a new tab in the preference dialog (like gedit does)?

Extension preferences are not always handled consistently. Some 
extensions have their own preferences dialog, while others seem to 
integrate into the main preferences dialog. The importer has a 
preference dialog that is only accessible from the import window itself.

2. Tools toolbar button

When clicking the Tools toolbar button, a dropdown menu is shown. I 
think it would be a good idea to add a dropdown arrow to this button to 
indicate that.

3. Resizing images

The resize plugin does support only an integer percentage. This is 
annoying when you try to resize to for instance 1/3th (33.33%) of the 
original size. Using 33% can introduce rounding errors in the final size.

4. File properties

The file properties pane shows only the filename, not the path. That's 
fine when browsing a directory, but with catalogs the images can be 
located in different places and there is no easy way to find out where 
it is stored.

I would rename the metadata edit dialog to the more general properties. 
I think people are more familiar with that name, and I can image there 
are other uses for that dialog (plugins) that are not directly related 
to the metadata.

As a photographer, I like to have immediate access to the photographic 
settings (aperture, shutter, iso, etc). Maybe we could provide a summary 
view of the most important settings, along with a detailed view that 
shows everything. Both in the metadata/properties dialog and the 
properties side pane. Eog does that with a "Metadata" tab and "Details" 
tab in its Properties dialog, and it works really well for me. (Note 
that being able to customize the caption in browser mode is already a 
very nice feature!)

5. Camera import

How about making the importer a little smarter by pre-selecting images? 
I don't know what is technically possible, but my suggestion is to 
remember the timestamp of the last import (maybe we need to store one 
timestamp for each import source here). During the next import, we can 
then pre-select all images that are newer than this timestamp. This 
would save some time when users are keeping their photos on the camera 
for a while. Downloading all images again, or having to locate the new 
photos manually can be very inconvenient.

Jef