Re: nautilus improvements

[Peter Chabada <linux chabada sk>]

Danny Milosavljevic píše v Ne 26. 03. 2006 v 17:23 +0200:
> Very nice ideas... something for Xfce to chew on, at least...

Thanks.

> Yes, and until one can actually search for those comments. (Think tags.)

You are right. I added this to article.

> > multirename
> 
> Useful way too seldomly. If you have broken names, think where they come
> from and fix the program that imported them from there and was too lazy
> to fix them.

Seldom but when you need it what you do?

> > change properties for root-owned [... files]
> 
> That sounds so easy to do but in fact is very difficult. Just executing
> the file manager as root is no solution because running any X program as
> root is a huge security risk. I wouldn't trust X any further than I can
> throw it.
> 
> So not like:
> 
> sudo nautilus
> and nautilus doing "mv x y"
> 
> but like:
> 
> nautilus
> and nautilus doing "sudo mv x y"

That's the way I though to be - invoke "gksudo chmode 644 file". For
that I use now terminal but some people are doing "sudo nautilus". Both
could become unnecessary.

> ----
> Nautilus improvements
> 
> > Browsing through files in nautilus with keyboard right arrow key
> should not have "hard" edges and should allow user go to next row.
> 
> Nice idea. Get it into gtk :)

Do someone know some gtk developer? Let him/her know.

> > If system detects possibility for multiple terminals wizard with two
> questions (press key X, click on Y)
> 
> xorg needs to be extended to allow this kind of stuff. Would be nice
> though.

http://linuxgazette.net/124/smith.html says that Xorg 6.9/7.0 provides
multi-seat capability. There is only missing GUI.

> Audio notifications
> 
> As in "BEEP!" ? Ok
> As in Text-to-Speech: No way in hell. That scares the living daylight
> out of you. And I tried. I'll never add that again. Thankfully, I'm
> still alive.

:)

> > program icon in taskbar shows progress,
> 
> That would be very nice indeed. Please bring it up with the apps that do
> long running-tasks...

Some apps are starting using it (gnomebaker, copying in gnome).

> Multimedia center
> 
> > integrate everything needed for home entertainment 
> 
> I don't know, I'm pretty fine with the current state (rhythmbox,
> mplayer). Thats probably because I don't know that there would be a
> better way though :)

There are many perfect multimedia applications. But it's very hard to
put Linux PC in living room and invoke and control them with RC. What I
meant is integrate them to something like MS Media Center or Apple's
First row application. Easy is to play/pause/forward/rewind, hard is to
choose what to play. Behind could still be rhytmbox, mplayer...

> > Cellphone/PDA synchronization
> 
> I'm not sure if there are even projects started that cover all this...
> Seen any?

There are very few, e.g. multisync. Geeks can use them but they are not
for newbies.

> > music database
> 
> What do you mean "database"? Fix the filesystem/os and use beagle/... if
> you want to search.

I meant something like file where rhythmbox stores its information about
songs.

> > thumbnails database
> 
> What do you mean "database"? Fix the filesystem to support subfiles in
> files ("foo.png/thumbnail" is a file that has the thmbnail data).

I meant ~/.thumbnails folder used by nautilus. Applications that works
with images (gthumb, fspot...) could it use too instead of creating its
own thumbnails. Some applications are starting using this place some
still not.

> > cddb
> 
> How would that be useful? The app you rip your CD with is the only one
> that will ever need that. Or do you actually use your original Audio CDs
> instead of ripping them?

I have ~/.cddb and ~/.cddbslave and stored files are in same format. Why
two folders, why not one?

> Hah, as long as we are a democracy "the government" will do what I and
> the majority wants or else run for their lives. 

When I hear that in Belarus is act (law) that almost says that you are
terrorist if you don't agree with government. So I'm very sad if
democratic countries (e.g. USA) are taking people their rights in the
name of fighting against terrorism. But this isn't the right place for
this questions.

> > SPF
> 
> No idea about that. If that is supposed to fight spam, don't. Just make
> spamming illegal and charge lunatic fines when caught.

SPF is not intended to fight spam (but also helps). It's that I say my
legitimate mails came from xyz smtp server. If it came from another
place it is falsified. Now I can send mail in your name. Or I can send
email with fictional email address that says it is from your domain. You
cannot send me mail talking that you are danny citibank com - my smtp
server will reject it because you are not citibank.com (Citibank
provides valid smpt servers). So it also helps fight phishing (which is
illegal but is still there).

> > In searchbox should be able use keyword lang:xx for using different
> language than user's environment.
> 
> No, quite the opposite. It should find your word in all other language
> versions of it too. I.e. I should be able to search for "suche" (German
> for English "search") and get both files with "suche" in them AS WELL AS
> files with "search" in them. 

This seems fine and should be default but there should be way how to say
the word is in another language (e.g. I type "host" which can be English
word "host" or Slovak word meaning "guest"). If it will be too wide it
will found everything so it will be useless.

> Archives are archives precisely so that they aren't in the way of normal
> operations and thus what is in them should NOT be found except when you
> _specifically_ demand it. Many people get that wrong and use archives
> just to save space when they should *use a decent filesystem that does
> that automatically instead*.

I meant on demand. That's why I wrote checkbox.

> Gnome Network Manager is a huge step into the right direction...
> although there are still things to be done. In fact, your text on that
> should be sent to the maintainer of it :)

I will try to found the right person.

> HAL did it another way and catches the eject button click and makes it
> available as a normal button click event to applications :) Nice...
> didn't try yet though... but heard rumours.

That's the way it should be done.

> > In windows can two windows be align side be side (horizontally or
> vertically) on right clicking on taskbar. Similar functionality is
> missing in Gnome.
> 
> Ah! I never noticed that... Someone actually found/used that feature? :)

My colleage uses this a lot. I learned this from him. :)

> > Services settings dialog
> 
> Huh? We have a init.d service manager? Where? :)

Simple tool that can stand for "/etc/init.d/xyz start/stop/restart" for
some services is in Gnome 2.12+:
http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/notes/en/figures/figure-gnome-system-tools-services.png
http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/notes/en/rnadmins.html

Thank you Danny for some ideas and for critics too.

Cheers,
--
Peter Chabada