XFCE design SIG: Thunar: Several design ideas

[Matt x]

>>>> 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 pop-up dialog in its current status has the following advantages / disadvantages:
> + you can see the old filename in the main window while typing the new name
> + you won't accidentally start the renaming (I've observed many people do and curse about it)
> - the dialog window is too small and inconvenient for longer filenames
> - it's an ugly pop-up, in-place renaming looks more elegant (but that's a matter of taste)
> Possible solutions:
> * Make the dialog window larger / scale appropriately
> * Rename in-place and show old filename in status bar while renaming. However, in-place renaming might suffer from the same size issues as the dialog window.
>
> Enter the bulk renamer:
> There is no way to invoke the bulk renamer for single files. Why is this bad? Why would one want to do that? Imagine you just renamed a lot of files, then want to perform the same operation on a single file you forgot or on a lot of single files in different folders. It's impossible right now, isn't it?
> Solution: Provide override key, like <Shift>-<F2>, or shift-clicking on the context menu entry, as with the delete function (bypass trash).
>
> I've filed an enhancement request (bug 7684) for this, see
> https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7684

Thank you.

> I believe you can already do this by dragging the file holding <Ctrl>
> and <Shift>, and you could create a similar menu entry by creating a
> custom action.
>
> Harald

Ctrl+Shift+drag doesn't work for me.  I'll have to look into the custom 
action thing.

> Maybe the filename splitting could be a bit more intelligent though
> "daa2iso.\nzip" rather than "daa2iso.zi\np".

That would look nicer, imo.  I'm wondering if it was just done the 
easiest way for Nautilus.  Of course, "daa2iso.\nzip" would have to deal 
with the potential for multiple dots in the file name "daa2iso2.5.zip" 
and long things after the last dot "daa2iso2.5workingreallywellhere". 
Though I can imagine that wouldn't be too hard to take care of.

> Disagree on this as well. I see no real idea of having one more view
> just for showing/not showing thumbnails.

The reason I suggested this was to quickly switch between using 
thumbnails and not, as I would like to do.  Essentially, it wouldn't be 
a separate view, just Icons view with thumbnails which is why I also 
suggested just adding an option like Show Hidden Files to the View menu. 
  The more I think about it, the more I like putting the option in the 
View menu (or somewhere else easy to get to) than having a separate view.

> I don't know if this is the right approach to do this (sounds/looks a
> bit bloaty...), but I agree that it is sometimes frustrating to have
> some extra items (especially Wine Notepad) in the list. You sometimes
> hit that item, whether you wanted that or not.

Then perhaps a separate tool could be added to add/remove programs from 
each mime type as in Windows XP- (not sure how it's done now)?  The 
issue with this, though, is that it might be even slower: I had noticed 
this list often takes a while to open in Windows.
However it's done, I think there does need to be a way to remove 
programs from the list (is there even an easy way to do it in the CLI?)

>>    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.
> Is it possible to edit with right-click? I don't know if it's worth
> adding an extra dialog to ask *every time*, but if right-click-edit is
> not possible, maybe add that functionality.

I see that it _is_ currently possible to select from the Open With list 
for executable files in Thunar.  I'm in the habit of double-clicking the 
executable file and then selecting run or display, though that habit 
could be changed.

-Matt