[Thunar-dev] Random thoughts

[Brian J. Tarricone]

Hi all, first post ^_~.

Francois Le Clainche wrote:

>URL BAR
>I vote for no location toolbar but an open location dialog
>  
>
I think a URL bar is useful, but not enogh to be enabled by default.  An 
open location dialog like GtkFileChooser is a must - I rarely click 
through file choosers these days in favor of ctrl+L.  I think here it's 
going to be a matter of taste: whether the user prefers to ctrl+L and 
use that kind of entry, or to click on an URL bar.  Actually, what would 
be nice is if ctrl+L focuses the URL bar if it's enabled, and opens the 
dialog if not (sorta like Firefox/Mozilla, though I don't know if it 
does that second part).

>TOOLBAR
>The buttons I couldn't live without in the toolbar:
>- back
>- up
>- reload
>- home
>- change icons size
>- iconview/listview switch
>- show hidden files
>- show thumbnails
>  
>
Agreed on everything, except i think you can combine the "change icons 
size" with the "iconview/listview switch" button (that is, make it a 
menu button).  Also, I don't personally care too much for thumbnails, so 
it would be a feature I don't use often, and doesn't seem like it should 
be on the toolbar.  Perhaps put in the aforementioned view style menu 
button?

Btw, I noticed in the design document, Benny seems somewhat skeptical on 
the need for an "Up" button, and uses Apple's Finder as an example of 
something that doesn't.  Remember, Finder doesn't *need* an up button 
because it always shows you your parent directory hierarchy contents.  
Any of you who have used Finder in OS X knows what I mean; perhaps 
someone else can explain it better.  Anyway, I think an up button is 
absolutely essential.

>TREE VIEW
>I've never used the tree view, even under Windows, and never missed it,
>so my opinion would be that it's not really required in thunar.
>  
>
Ouch.  Strongly strongly disagree.  A file manager is utterly useless to 
me without a tree view (for directories only; files in a tree view just 
get in the way).

>- If spatial mode isn't used, why not implementing tabs??
>  
>
Interesting idea, though that sounds more like a "power user" type 
thing, and maybe should wait until after 1.0?

>XFCE INTEGRATION
>- Find a way to add a file/folder/application from thunar to the panel
>using DND, in order to create a launcher (a usual launcher, or a
>launcher which would be part of a dedicated panel plugin), eg using the
>data stored in thunar, like the application used to open a particular
>file?
>  
>
Creating a launcher on DnD is easy (well, hopefully it *will* be in 
Jasper's 4.4 panel).  Creating a launcher for regular files based on 
MIME data should be pretty easy too, since that all needs to be 
implemented for the file manager anyway.

So anyway, sorry for butting in...  After reading over the design 
document a couple times, it's really starting to grow on me, and I'm 
realising that some of the "geeky" features I think I want, aren't 
really all that useful after all.  Cool.  This looks like it'll turn out 
to be a file manager I'd actually use, unlike all the others out there.

Cheers,
Brian