Re: Nautilus GSoC Idea - Icon sizes based on usage

[Anirudh <anirudh anirudhsanjeev org>]

Hi Natan,

Your project sounds quite interesting and useful. I'm pretty sure that your logs would be a much more unified way to present the user with relevant files inside the file browser itself. How mature is your nautilus access log implementation, and how can I get hold of the logs.

I'm pretty interested in implementing this idea, and some similar implementations of mine (including a website in my university, where more frequently used links come up on top and look bigger) have had good feedback. My experience with GTK is merely creating gladexml files, and want to first hear from a nautilus-dev wether such an implementation is possible without requiring too much hacking around the codebase.

Thanks,
Anirudh

On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Natan Yellin <aantny gmail com> wrote:

Hello Anirudh,
We're doing something a bit similar in the GNOME Zeitgeist project. (See http://live.gnome.org/GnomeZeitgeist)

Zeitgeist tracks a user's file usage in a sqlite database. The database stores filenames, tags (which we automatically deduce), and the times when items were opened by the user.

Right now, we present the user with a time-ordered list of files using a GtkTreeView. If you're interested, it shouldn't be too hard to add on a new view which will display file icons as you suggested.

If you're interested, we're planning on applying for GSoC. Feel free to come into #zeitgeist on irc.freenode.org if you're interested in discussing a possible application.

-Natan

 

2009/3/18 Anirudh <anirudh anirudhsanjeev org>

Hi,

I wanted to know if this would be interesting as a SoC project for me:
Abstract: A view for nautilus, where the icon sizes and position for folders change based on their usage. More frequently accessed paths will be displayed at top with a large prominence for the size.

Reason: People might have folders with a large number of files/paths. Some may be more frequently accessed than others, yet no file browser today tries to show more relevant and important files on top, and with larger size. The advantages are obvious, and the display can be a per-folder option. I'm guessing that the usability will be improved. (I will probably ask the gnome-usability team).

Implementation: A seperate database, probably sqlite, which logs when a user opens a folder or file in nautilus, and tries to decide intelligently based on one of many algorithms, which folders come up on top. A use case will be if I'm working on a project this week, it should put those files on top, even if I'd opened some files more for last week's project, but I haven't opened them since.

A score for each path will be calculated, which deteriorates over time, and deteriorates a little for some other factors. This formula can be tweaked after some testing and the sizes can be calculated and rendered accordingly.

I believe that this can be implemented over two months, considering I have experience only building nautilus from svn and not familiar with the codebase.

Thanks,
Anirudh

--
Fourth Year Undergraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
E-Mail/jabber/googletalk: anirudh -at- anirudhsanjeev -dot- org
Phone: +91-97335-04828
My PGP key: anirudhsanjeev.org/pubkey.txt

--
nautilus-list mailing list
nautilus-list gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list

-- 
Fourth Year Undergraduate Student, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
E-Mail/jabber/googletalk: anirudh -at- anirudhsanjeev -dot- org
Phone: +91-97335-04828
My PGP key: anirudhsanjeev.org/pubkey.txt