Some Ideas about Previewing and Multiple Media handling in Nautilus

[Ryan McDougall <ryan mcdougall telusplanet net>]

My appolgies for posting twice, but I feel my first email might have
been a little off topic, so Im placing my comments in a new thread. I
think my ideas are useful, and I hope I can add something to the
conversation.

It seems to me that we have uncovered an inherent duality in the Browser
metaphor, where sometime we/users want to preview a file, and times when
we want to Launch the MIME application associated with the file. I think
both options should be possible, because the overriding question should
always be about whether this behavior actually improves my life, and its
clear that both behaviors are helpful under different circumstances.

Aside: I think file management as we know it will be dead in a few
years, in the same way that bookmark management is a dying hobby thanks
to google and browse histories ( a la Epiphany ). Sure people will
always need to create new directories and copy files, but nothing that
needs the power of Nautilus.

The question of how to correctly and neatly accomodate both styles: 

My preference is to have a behavior where left clicking on the file
launches the associated MIME app, if there is only one associate app, or
launches a context sensitive menu ask what the use would like to DO with
the file. In the case of an image file, it might ask a more sophisticaed
version of "Would you like to See Slideshow (gqview), Edit (gimp), ...".

When the user only wants a preview:

1. I will take mouse-over on mp3 files as an example of current behavior
extended to other data types. I think mouse-over should cause Nautilus
to "Zoom in" on the data file. If the user leaves his focus on the file
for some time, it may be appropriate to assume shes interested in that
data, and wants to quickly know more about it -- so we should
unobtrusivly offer a preview. For sound files, the Zooming behavior is
to offer a sample of the sound for as long as the mouse is over the
file, when the mouse leaves, the sample stops. The same behavior can be
extended to images and movies. Nautilus already unobtrusivly generates
thumbnail size "Zoom-ins" for pictures-as-icons, but lets say thats not
enough for me, I want to know more. Mouseover should open a new window
containing a larger ( but not full size ) version of the image, only so
long as I am "moused-over". To avoid confusing the user, the windows
that opens should clearly point out graphically that the Zoom-in
corresponds to the file there mouse was over. Also to avoid a jarring
experience where the user sees something quicly flashed before their
eyes but have no idea where it came from, there should be a time delay
on the Zoom-in of a couple seconds. Once again, the preview should be
unobtrusive to the file browsing, so the user should never need to close
down the preview manually. For text files, this elimnate the desire to
edit the text, since once the mouse leaves the file to go edit the text,
the window will close the preview back down.

2. A context sensitive right menu could offer to generate a preview in
view-pane. I dont think that stealing the view-pane for playing movies,
or displaying images interferes with the UI consistency of the manager.
However, when viewing Text, I think the text should be editable if they
have write permissions, this is the expected behavior, so it should be
allowed. One thing Id like to stress, is that the views shouldnt add
complexity to Nautilus itself, Nautilus should always use external
components to view the data, like Konqueror ( which is a *technically*
very nice program ). Excuse me if this is always the case, Im not a
Nautilus dev.

In closing, I dont think that Nautilus should be a "universal previewer"
or "plain file manager" only, but we should clearly be asking ourselves
how we can create a program that will improve somebody's quality of
life. IMO Nautilus is a "GUI Shell using File Browser Metaphor", and
should offer a feature set that includes bother previewing, and regular
file management --  the question is not if, but how. Like a web browser
is a window into the Web, a file browser is a window on a world made of
files ( Unix ). People are biologically able to see that worldaround us
at different depths and clarities, and I think this is a very consistent
metaphor to integrate previewing and launching together.

Please let me know what this distinguished group thinks of my ramblings!

Cheers,
Ryan