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Gullible Jones

Member

Registered: 2004-12-29

Posts: 4,863

Enhancing the GTK file selector

Maybe a stupid question... Whatever:

The GTK file selector can do some cool stuff, such as searching by filename and mounting devices. However, it also can't do some really simple stuff, like moving files around or unmounting devices. It would be kind of convenient, in a half-baked way, if it could do those things; especially unmounting mounted devices.

Are there any existing patches that add such functionality?

(And yes, I'm talking about converting the file selector into a miniature file manager. Why not?)

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2013-02-10 01:52:29)

dunc

Member

From: Glasgow, UK

Registered: 2007-06-18

Posts: 559

Re: Enhancing the GTK file selector

For what it's worth, I completely agree. Two things strike me about these things on Linux (and other mainstream OSes):

Why are we using separate file selectors and file managers in the first place? And - maybe this is my Amiga background coming through - why are they part of the widget toolkit, instead of based on a protocol that all toolkits can follow, keeping the interface consistent? As I say, that's how it worked (and presumably still does) in Amigaland: just as on X, there were a number of widget toolkits, but dialogs (“requesters”, they call them) were separate. Whether you were running a Gadtools, MUI, or ClassAct application, your chosen requester library could hook into the system calls and you'd get the same familiar interface for saving and loading files, choosing fonts or colours, and information prompts. No need to remember that one scrolls horizontally while another's vertical, or that GTK2's is very slightly different to GTK3's...

Both problems could be fixed at the same time. If we were to move towards using file managers instead of custom dialogs, it would seem like a perfect candidate for an XDG standard. Then we could all set an environment variable and use the same FM for everything.

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