Faded File Extensions

[Nigel Tao <nigel tao myrealbox com>]

When showing files, one theory is that you show the ".txt" and ".png"
extensions, since they are the true filename, and another theory says
that you should hide them, since they are 'scary technical details' that
Joe User shouldn't have to deal with.

I just had an idea - what if combined both ideas rather than either one
or the other?  Nautilus already makes the distinction when renaming a
file (it selects only the "foo" of "foo.txt"), so should we also make
the same distinction when showing a file's name?

I've made a mock-up - does anyone think that this is worth pursuing?

http://browserbookapp.sourceforge.net/misc/faded-file-extensions.png


Nigel.