Re: [Usability] Two proposals for file-selection

[Curtis Hovey <sinzui cox net>]

On Sat, 2004-03-06 at 02:41, Julien Olivier wrote:
> (snip good idea)
> 
> > I really would like to know what do you think about the usability of
> > this, and the applicability to GTK/GNOME file selectors
> > 
> 
> Hi Daniel.
> 
> I think your proposal is very near to my idea of an ideal file way to
> find files in a file chooser. However, I have an even more radical
> solution: why not simply show all the user-accessible files matching a
> given mime-type in one list, sorted on mime-type-specific metadata
> fields ?
> 
> For example, when loading music, you should see all the music files on
> which you have read access, and this list should be sorted the same way
> it is sorted in rhythmbox (by artist/album/genre). A "search" entry
> would be great too.
> 
> That way, you can get rid of the directory structure entirely.

Medusa does this--you can get just such a list with msearch-gui.  Medusa
has a lot of flaws (indexing, restricted to HOME, ...), but providing
the file-open dialog with a fast and complete list of files is one of
its goals.

I'm currently working on a metadata daemon which will provide a more
accurate view of the file system through simple queries.  It will
provide the file-open dialog with a list of files that can further query
to see a subset.

-- 
__C U R T I S  C.  H O V E Y____________________
sinzui cox net
Guilty of stealing everything I am.