[Thunar-dev] The Thunar Path

[Brian J. Tarricone]

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On 11/16/2005 8:58 AM, aussiefax at charter.net wrote:
> Interesting article off Slashdot today about Type Managers replacing
> the standard File Manager.  I thougth perhaps the Thunar team should
> take a look at it.

Thunar has a list of its own: thunar-dev at xfce.org; please use it.

> http://www.icefox.net/articles/typemanager.html
> 
> Point being.  Why develop a new File Manager only to turn around and
> have it be outdated.  Linux has a LOT of files and the average user
> doesn't care about 99% of them.  A Type Manager system closely
> integrated with something like Beagle, in my opinion, is the best
> path to take for XFCE.  I know it's easier said than done, and I am
> no programmer.  But as a user I know the Type Manager system is what
> I'd like to see in my favorite linux desktop.

I don't really see how this is at all applicable to Thunar.

The first 90% of that article talks about type managers, which it
defines as a *variety* of different applications suited toward managing
certain types of files (so you have a music manager, photos manager,
documents manager, video manager, etc. etc.).  That's fine and dandy for
each of those types of files, but useless for generic file management
tasks.  Thunar isn't meant to be a photo-managing app, or any other kind
of specialised "type" managing app.

The 10% that actually talks about file managers just offers some -- very
useless, IMHO -- "rules" on what a file manager should do.  I just love
point #1: "While providing a means for the user to view the literal file
system hierarchy, the default view would be the user's home folder along
with a set of virtual folders that sort their content logically."  Er,
logically?  What does that mean?  Thunar will do points #2, 4, and 5,
and it'll probably be possible to do 3, 6, and 7 through some extension
mechanism in version 2.0.

So basically, most of the article describes things that already exist:
iTunes (or countless OSS apps) for music, something like digiKam for
photos, etc. etc., and cries for tighter integration with a normal-ish
file manager.  I'm not seeing how this article is interesting or
informative, really.  There will always be a place for a standard file
manager.  Relying on having a new type manager for every single possible
type of file out there is pretty stupid.  "Outdated", my ass.

In a word: *yawn*

	-brian

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