XFCE design SIG: Thunar: Several design ideas

[jp.guillemin]

On 06/02/2011 05:00 AM, Mike Massonnet wrote:
> %!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 :)

A very smart answer Mike !

Congratulations

JP

> 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 the options and niceties that originally made me choose Nautilus2 over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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>>
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