[Thunar-dev] Virtual root node

[Benedikt Meurer]

Auke Kok wrote:
> Biju Chacko wrote:
> 
>> Benedikt Meurer wrote:
>>
>>> I came across this question yesterday evening:
>>>
>>> Should we have a virtual root node like `Computer' (Gnome) or 
>>> something like that? So all other nodes (Filesystem, Home, Removable 
>>> Media) are children of that node.
>>>
>>> The reasons leading to this:
>>>
>>>  1) With the current design ideas, we have a special URI media type 
>>> 'home://' that refers to files belows the users home directory. And 
>>> going `Up' from 'home://' should not be possible (atleast it should 
>>> not jump to 'file:///usr/home' then). But not being able to go `Up' 
>>> from $HOME is a bit too restrictive and not very easy.
>>>
>>>  2) Having 3 or 4 toplevel root nodes in a treepane seems to be very 
>>> uncommon for a software that handles files/directories. A single root 
>>> node seems to be the common case here (e.g. `Computer' in Gnome, 
>>> `Desktop' in Windows, `/' in KDE, ...).
>>>
>>> Opinions?
>>
>>
>>
>> If you run nautilus --browser, the treeview has two toplevel nodes: 
>> Home and Filesystem. That seems fairly reasonable.
>>
>> I really don't see the need for a special 'home://' URI. What's wrong 
>> with 'file://'? IAC, in the default view you won't be showing the URI 
>> will you? 
> 
> I would go even further!
> 
> The normal user has nothing too look for in the filesystem... those 
> files are not writeable to him and the only thing in there is unindexed 
> blob. The only thing interesting could be applications, but those should 
> install a proper .desktop file and show up on other locations already...
> 
> so, the Filesystem topnode is for experts, which leads me to believe 
> that we should have the following topnodes (in this order)
> 
> + Home
> + Removable Media
> + Filesystem
> 
> The Filesystem root should possibly be hidden for normal users, in any 
> case it should be discouraged for normal users to traverse this tree
> 
> The Removable Media root *should* be available to users, and since it is 
> virtually completely different than the users home directory, a separate 
> root reflects this level of separation, after all both /home/joe and 
> /media/cdrom are inside the same vfs but still completely unrelated.
> 
> I think.

Thats pretty similar to what I have in mind, tho not showing 
'Filesystem' by default may confuse quite a few people. But showing it 
as the last element, collapsed by default, sounds like a good idea to me.

Benedikt