Re: Nautilus, metadata and extendet attributes

[Ryan Boder <icanoop bitwiser org>]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 09:34:52AM +0100, Heinrich Rebehn wrote:
> You should not forget users that are working on the command line or use 
> some tool like midnight commander (like i do). Using extensions to 
> denote the filetype allows me to view immediately what stuff i have in 
> my directory.

I don't see any reason why the shells can't use meta data just like a GUI
file manager would. Then the ls command could show the file type as well as
the file name when given some option to ls.

I use bash more often then I use nautilus and I think it would be useful if
both shells did file sniffing.


> Also, it's still the fastest way. Once you have read the directory, you 
> know the mime-types of all files within it.
> If the user decides to use "wrong" extensions, it's his decision, and if 
> the image viewer displays garbage because "pic.jpg" contains ascii, he 
> can use the file command to check what's wrong.

Using file sniffing and meta data to store mime types would not stop you
from putting file extensions in your file names. It would just make someone
like me who hates file extensions not be forced to use them. So it's less
restrictive than the current way we do it. Also when you are wrong about the
file type, file sniffing would probably get it right.

-- 
Ryan Boder
http://www.bitwiser.org/icanoop