Re: Patch and feature request for toggling display of hidden files

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Thu, 2004-05-27 at 15:29, Alexander Larsson wrote:

> > 
> > (I think the default should be to hide all hidden stuff and let users
> > override this on an individual folder basis if they want - please
> > confirm if thats acceptable)
> 
> I'd prefer if the global prefs was used for the initial setting for new
> windowd, and changing it later would change the setting for all windows
> that haven't made a local change.
>
> The question is if we should store the hidden setting for spatial
> windows for each directory, or maybe we should do something like inherit
> the setting from the launching directory.
> 


The problem is the code in the file manager section is independent of
the spatial and browser modes. This code does not know whether its being
called by spatial or browser modes and indeed it cannot know with the
way it is structured. Showing/hiding files also has to be done at the
file manager level.

Therefore unless major structural changes are done to Nautilus (that's
not recommended) we are limited to the following:

1) Showing hidden files has to be the same for browser and spatial modes
cause we cant tell which mode we are in.

2) No access to spatial/browser specific properties. Changes to the show
hidden property could be saved against location only as thats all we
know about here. 

The global refs complicate things as well from a usability point of
view. IE how does a user know whether a particular folder has a saved
setting? If he makes changes to the global prefs but sees no changes in
his folders he is likely to get confused and probably mistake it as a
bug.

IMHO, I would default to not showing hidden stuff as that's what
appropriate for novice users whilst non-novice users will know how to
show hidden stuff if they need to. 

jamie.