Squeeze file properties window ideas (feedback requested)

[Stephan Arts]

On 5/21/07, Christian Dywan <christian at twotoasts.de> wrote:
> Am Mon, 21 May 2007 00:17:19 +0200
> schrieb "Stephan Arts" <stephan at xfce.org>:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have been working on some ideas of implementing a file properties
> > dialog in squeeze.
> > One of these ideas involved using dbus to trigger thunar in viewing
> > it's properties window.
> >
> > But i encountered a little problem which involves the capability of
> > the properties dialog being able to rename the file, obviously... bad
> > things will happen.
> >
> > Now, i have come-up with a number of possible solutions.
> >
> > 1) Make it possible to set the properties dialog to 'read-only'
> >
> > 2) Let the properties-dialog give feed-back (iirc, this is possible
> > using d-bus) about any changes, this can result in weird errors
> > though.
> >
> > 3) Use fam to detect file changes (especially moves) and automatically
> > adjust the filename internally.
> >
> > 4) Implement a properties-dialog, at the risk of it not 'blending'
> > into xfce nicely.
> >
> > Personally, I would prefer 3, with a fall back to 4 when either thunar
> > or fam can't be reached.
> >
> > But, because I lack some experience on the matter, i would like to
> > know how other devs would do this.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Stephan
>
> In my opinion, option '4' is preferrable for two reasons:
>
> 1. One program re-using a second program's widgets is a popular source
> of problems. Apart from a filemanager that could for example be the
> panel using plugins.

It won't be actually reusing the widget, it will be telling the xfce
file manager that is available to show it's properties dialog.
However, this dialog might be (and in thunar's case is) capable of
moving the file, this is something squeeze might be required to deal
with.
Because it will break things.

>
> 2. Even if squeeze and Thunar both are meant to be the default choices
> for their tasks, what if one likes to have a different file manager?

This is why option 4 is supposed to be a fall back solution, either
implementing the dialog in squeeze itself or extracting it from a
library.

>
> What about having Thunar's properties dialog as a seperate GTK+ widget
> instead, so that consistency is kept?

Adding the widget to libxfcegui4 might or might not be a good idea
since this would add a dependency on this library for both Thunar and
Squeeze.

This is why I would like some additional info about this.

Regards,

Stephan