Notes on The File Selector discussion
Discussion lead by Havoc Pennington
Notes by Louis Villa
Editing and HTML convsrion by Ben FrantzDale
- API (talking about this sucks):
- possibly break GTK rule and make fs opaque
- possibly present as object and not widget
- possibly want to open resources and not just files
- This is a problem because we need it in both GTK and with fancy gnome-y features (specifically gnome-vfs)
- Java has a file system object, Anders' code has something
like this.
- Just to be explicit: we must be able to use gnome-vfs file system, as well as others.
- Michael, Owen, Chris and Havoc argue about virtualization of the widget, to be talked about later :)
-
User InterfaceI:
- From email: ‘UI should be determined by usability team’
- Anna says ‘maybe we shouldn't try to innovate on this
one’ — just copy/lift from someone else.
- Screenshot as many different ones as possible, compare
features, how extensible, etc.
- OS/X one is only one substantially different from Windows
file selector and it would have the advantage of being easy to
implement.
- Keyboard entry, something like tab completion except maybe using something
other than tab. Using Slash for this was mentioned. [Editor's note: Emacs uses
M-/ for word completion.]
- Other possibly keynav issues are in directory selection [don't forget file name]
- People wnat the ability to do, for example, *jpg as a filter entry.
- One way of doing completion would be location-bar–style auto-complete
- Havoc's requests:
- For “open” mode, needs single- and multiple-select modes.
- For save mode, don't forget file name when doing keynav.
- For directory selection mode, allow both single and multiple selects.
- Also, the ability to add preview widget (perhaps in different locations?)
- He would like to allow for auxiliary widgets of other types (like gimp's file type thing).
- He wants to use the native mime system interface and icons.
- He wants an opaque programming interface.
- History, possibly implemented as a drop-down from text entry like Galeon.
- Question: Is the file selector nearly a file manager or does it do it very
simple and interoperate with your file manager?
- or is it extensible so you can choose to do both? :)
- Minimally it would require a ‘just open nautilus’ button.
- Possibly optional: consistency with icons, previews, etc. from
Nautilus.
- What about widget embedded in a dialog?
- Can this be done in such a way that it looks right?
- Simplicity
- Possibility of hiding previews
- What directory do we open in?
- Should it be on a per-app basis?
- Should it be on a per-mime-type basis?
- user-overridable filters (what if gnome-vfs guesses wrong or can't guess for whatever reason)
- We don't need the ability to stretch icons (we all agree on this :) <- we all agreed, dammit.
- Process:
- We need (probably) a UI dictator.
- We must be doing testing.
- Anders is the only one writing it — what's the interaction between coder and UI design?
- Basically completely up to Anders at this point — we hope it
works out :)
- URLs: