[Thunar-dev] UI proposal: actions folders

[Brian J. Tarricone]

Agostino Russo wrote:

> It would be nice to have an interface where one could use the 
> directional buttons both for navigating AND for choosing an action for 
> the selected item.
>
> It would only imply a minor modification on a usual directory tree: 
> the addition of an "actions folders" as the first child of each item 
> of the tree. Such actions folder would contain the same items that 
> would normally go in the context menu of its parent.
>
> So, to access the available actions of any item in the tree you only 
> need to press the right directional button twice, and you cancel such 
> menu by pressing left. Very very quick to use. The mouse interace 
> works as usual, with the advantage that now you do not need  rightclicks.
>
> A typical tree could be:
>
> Filesystem (/)
> --ACTIONS
> --bin
> --boot

Ick.  So what happens if someone has a folder named ACTIONS?  I don't 
really see what's wrong with right-clicks (no, "I use a Mac and don't 
have a right mouse button," isn't an excuse: get a reasonable pointing 
device).  This feels like the kind of "unbreak my software" options 
Benny hates.  It just sounds overly complicated and totally 
unnecessary.  If you want to make the argument that you don't want to 
use a mouse at all, then the right answer is keybindings for the more 
oft-used items, and the less-used items should be in a menu that can be 
accessed via keyboard navigation.

Can I klemmer this?

    -brian