Re: Temporarily open folders on drag-and-drop

[Jason Day <jason s day gmail com>]

Let me add one more thing. The patent describes a method where the enclosures are "sprung open" temporarily and closed when the drag is complete. If you apply this to the spatial mode, it could be very questionable, especially if you close the intermediate windows, afterward. I don't think that it should be any trouble at all in browser mode, especially if you remain in the destination at the end of the drag.

On 1/2/06, Jason Day <jason s day gmail com> wrote:

I brought something similar up on the list, last year. See:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2005-July/msg00297.html
From that discussion, it seemed that just opening folders when hovering wouldn't necessarily infringe on the patent. The apple patent means a lot more than that. The patent in question:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6307545.WKU.&OS=PN/6307545&RS=PN/6307545
This feature could also be extended to make it more useful. i.e. activation on the browser-mode pathbar, the places sidebar or the spatial-mode hierarchy list (whatever that thing's called). This would allow you to easily move up OR down the tree. All that this really would need to entail is activating these items on drag+hover, as well as point+click. And then again, none of us are lawyers, but I don't think it would hurt for someone to try something. If it is a problem, it can always be removed, or moved out of the US. If not, GNOME has gained a handy new feature.