[Nautilus-list] thoughts, wishes, bugreports (a lot of)

[Vlad Harchev <hvv hippo ru>]

 Hi, 

 Here is a list of bugreports, thoughts and wishes on Nautilus  snapshot dated
23 Dec 2000. I'm sorry for mailing about this  ancient  version :), but
please pay attention. 

* Internal text file view component has the following problems:
1) It uses proportional fonts (not monospaced!) - this makes ascii art
    and indentation in files viewed to become broken.
2) It doesn't use current theme's colors  - it uses hardcoded black for text
    and white for background. In theory it would be better to provide means
    for configuring fonts and colors that are used, but use gtk theme's
    fonts and colors as defaults.

* It would be nice to have ability to disable counting files in the
    subdirectory and showing that value. That can improve performance a lot.

* It would be nice to disable 'file'-method of determining file's mimetype
    to improve performance when determining which icon to stick to file.

* As for default size of icons and text. I think it would be nice to have 
    "base scale factors"  for icon size and for font size separately.
    The real font size or default icon size to use is calculated by multiplying
    size corresponding to "zoom ration" and that "base scale factors". 

* Themeing:
1) It would be nice from sysadmin's POV to allow loading of nautilus themes 
    not only from $prefix/SOMEDIR (that is not user-writable), but also from
    some subdirectory of ~/ (so installing nautilus theme won't require 
    having root priveleges). Seems something similar (allowing to choose
    a directory with themes) is implemented, but I  was unable to determine
    how to use it.
2) It would be nice to have command (i.e. menuitem) that derives a nautilus 
    theme from the custom decoration of some directory. I.e user will be able
    to drop backgrounds to some nautilus window, and then make all directories 
    utilizing the same set of effects.
    
* Power-user aids
1) It would be nice to have some way of selecting/unselecting files by shell 
    pattern (as in midnight commander).
2) It would be nice to support "del" key for deleting selected items.
3) Ability to show files from different directories would be nice (in this mode,
    file name displayed is relative path + filename). "external panelize"
    command would be easily implementable then for file:// urls.
4) Ability to invoke hex-viewer (or raw view) for file of any file type (and
    activate it as a viewer for files of unknown mimetype).


* Additional commands that would be nice to have:
1) Forget all {emblems, tight layouts, directory decorations} globally (i.e. in
    all directories). That's very easy to implement.

2) "Terminal here" - invokes xterm or gnome-terminal in the current directory - 
    if it's file:// URL of course.

* The text on the "caveat" logo is drawn using hardcoded color (black).
    The gtk theme's text color should be used instead for it to become
    visible if dark gtk theme is used.
    
* In the file-properies window, on the "permissions" tab (or whatever it's 
    called) ALL text labels are drawn using hardcoded font (this means it
    breaks localization if that font doesn't have glyphs for displaying
    localized string) and hardcoded (black) color (making ALL labels 
    invisible with dark gtk theme).  Just use gtk theme's font and color 
    and all will be OK.
    
* Pageup/pagedown are not working for scrolling the window with files.

* Pageup/pagedown/home/end initially not working when internal text file 
    viewer is invoked. Only after clicking in the subwindow focus is 
    brought to it  and pageup/pagedown can be used. But Home/End don't work
    even after this (though Ctrl-Home/Ctrl-End work as expected).
    NOTE: after clicking in the text view subwindow and leaving text view
    (e.g. by pressing "UP" toolbar item) crashes nautilus-text-view.

* More extfs modules that would be nice to support:
1) undelfs

 It's notable that a lot of items in this list are easy to fix/implement.

 I'm not just complaining/suggesting - I heartfully wish Nautilus to become
 best file shell. I guess It's very funny to be Eazel employee and improve
 Nautilus on a daily basis.

 Best regards,
  -Vlad