XFCE design SIG: Thunar: Several design ideas

[Mike Massonnet]

%!grep Nautilus
16

I believe what we are not doing is the Nautilus. If you like Nautilus,
use it, don't ask Thunar to mimic it :)

PS: sorry, I didn't read through your email, just saying.

2011/6/1  <xfcemailing.kyoo at xoxy.net>:
>   I have a couple ideas to make Thunar a "better" file manager in my
> opinion.  Mostly, they're based on things I liked about Nautilus2 before
> switching to XFCE at the coming of Gnome3.  As someone who currently has
> little programming knowledge, ideas is all they are.  I'm not suggesting
> XFCE4 is made over to be completely like Gnome2.  I'm just saying some ideas
> from Gnome2 could be used to improve XFCE4.
>   I currently use Nautilus2 as my file and desktop manager, but it's no
> longer developed and I'd rather use Thunar than Nautilus3 - if Thunar has
> the options and niceties that originally made me choose Nautilus2 over
> Konqueror, Dolphin, pcmanfm, etc.
>
>   1) Allow the user to set a background/wallpaper for the file and folder
> pane(?).  I appreciate being able to customize the look of many things and
> like having something besides the default plain white in the file and folder
> view.  Nautilus2 FM with a background: http://ompldr.org/vOHZpMg
>   2) An optional, more compact icon arrangement.  This would be different
> from the current similarly-named Compact List.  My idea would be both to
> have the icons closer together in the Compact Icons view than the Icons view
> and to show only a certain amount of long file names, until the files' icons
> were moused over, as Nautilus2 does.  As you can see in the following image,
> Nautilus2 shows more icons in the view than Thunar, even though Thunar's
> icons are smaller.  Both windows are the same width and height.  Nautilus2
> compared to Thunar: http://ompldr.org/vOHZpaA
>   3) In 2)'s image above, you can also see that Nautilus' file and folder
> names are center-aligned, rather than left-aligned.  To me, this looks more
> tidy, especially for certain names where some lines are significantly
> shorter than others (compare [The Watcher] as well as daa2iso.zip).
>   4) One feature Nautilus2 didn't have that I would like is a "separate"
> thumbnail view.  From the View menu, View as Thumbnails could be chosen,
> which would set the same setting Edit > Preferences > Display > Show
> thumbnails does.  I usually don't want thumbnails as they take up more room
> and visually break up things for me.  However, I occasionally want to browse
> images by thumbnail rather than file name. Having this in the View menu
> would be allow switching between icons and thumbnails more quickly.
>  Alternately, a check box could be added to the View menu directly below
> Show Hidden Files.
>   5) I think it looks nicer to name and rename files and folders in the file
> manager window, rather than opening a pop-up to do this. Renaming in the FM
> window in Nautilus2: http://ompldr.org/vOHZpaw
>   6) While having a simple drop down box to choose the default application
> to open a file type with on the first Properties page is nice, I would also
> like to be able to -remove- applications from the list in the case where
> certain applications I never want to open this file type with add themselves
> to the list (ex: "A Wine Application" on numerous file types).  The way
> Nautilus2 handles this in the GUI is to add an extra tab to the file's
> Properties page.  I suppose an x or minus icon could be added beside each
> item in the drop-down list, but I think that would make it fairly easy to
> remove the wrong app, especially if there are several the user wants to
> remove.  Here's a mock-up using a combination of Thunar & Nautilus2:
> http://ompldr.org/vOHZpcw
>   7) Having the option of applying rwx permissions to files and directories
> with a grid of checkboxes rather than drop-down menus would be nice.  At the
> least, execute permission should be added to Thunar's Properties >
> Permissions tab.
>   8) In Nautilus, I like being able to select whether to run or view an
> executable text file every time.  In Thunar, the file is always run.  In
> Nautilus' preferences, the options given are always run, never run, and
> always ask.
>   9) Occasionally, having pasted files/folders automatically selected after
> pasting is useful.
>   10) The option to create a symlink to the selected file(s)/directory(s)
> (with an absolute path) in Nautilus' right-click menu is used often by me.
>
>   Thanks for reading my large number of selections with long explanations.
> If/when I learn C properly, they're all on my long list of things I want to
> change, at least to patch the copies on my computer. However, I would quite
> appreciate if the best of these suggestions (or all of them) were
> implemented sooner than that.
>   Regardless of whether any of this is added, what is people's feedback?
>
> -Matt
>
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-- 
Mike