Re: [PATCH] Don't use file type in sidebar for "abstract" files

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Sun, 2005-07-31 at 01:22 +0200, Christian Neumair wrote:
> From bug 168561 [1]:
> 
> "When I open "Computer" in the File Browser, the Information sidebar
> shows "x-directory/normal, 11 items". This is very silly considering
> that my computer is not a directory."
> 
> The proposed patches introduce a concept of "abstract" files which don't
> map to actual inodes, i.e. "computer:///", "network:///",
> "x-nautilus-desktop:///" etc.. All of them should not expose their file
> type to the user, since the information is generally crap. I've just
> noticed that I didn't add "fonts:///" and "burn:///", but this would be
> trivial to add. Maybe you remember any other URIs that are abstract?
> For now I'm just interested in architectural feedback :).
> 
> Note that we can later adapt [2] to this API where appropriate, although
> this is not yet a priority.
> 
> [1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168561
> [2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2005-July/msg00331.html

I'm not sure this is the right kind of abstraction we need. It adds a
new abstraction "abstract file" (btw, "vitual" sounds better), without a
clear definition of exactly what it means and when to use it.

For instance, the mail you mention in [2] is somewhat similar to the
issue in [1], but the new abstraction doesn't really help for it, since
you do want to show the directory size for some abstract files such as
burn://. For the property dialog I would like to totally special-case
the properties dialog for computer to just show some information about
the hardware (hostname, cpu, speed, memory size) and drop the
permissions tab. The "abstract file" abstraction doesn't really help
here either.

So, unless we have a very well specified and useful semantics for them
we shouldn't introduce new abstract properties like that. Its better to
have specific ones instead (nautils_file_display_type() maybe?).

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an all-American drug-addicted dog-catcher from a doomed world. She's a 
virginal paranoid angel married to the Mob. They fight crime!