Re: Getting the icons used by GtkFileChooser

[Sven Neumann <sven gimp org>]

Hi,

Federico Mena Quintero <federico ximian com> writes:

> I don't think applications should display a preview for files they
> *really* know they cannot open.  That is, the GIMP shouldn't display a
> big socket icon as a preview for a Unix socket.  A text editor shouldn't
> display a preview for image files, etcetera.
> 
> This is precisely what gtk_file_chooser_set_preview_active() is for.  In
> your ::update_preview() callback, you call that function with FALSE if
> you can't generate a preview for the file in question.  The file chooser
> will hide the preview widget in that case.

This leads to annoying window resizing and widget repositioning and I
don't think this is a good solution. Take a look at what Mac OS X is
doing. They are displaying a preview or alternatively a large
file-type icon. Below this preview/icon area there is some extra
information like filetype, filesize and modification time. IMO this is
a very good example of a useful preview area that is at the same time
very pleasant to look at.

> I really fear that exposing data from the internal GtkFileInfo will
> lead to all sorts of questions around GTK+/glib not providing a VFS
> interface of its own.  This is beyond the scope of GTK+, and is
> rather a Freedesktop.org issue.

An abstract VFS interface that works on all desktops would of course
be the perfect solution.


Sven