Re: [rox-devel] Bug reporting, patches and suggestions.

[Thomas L. <ta...@ec...>]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2000 at 06:58:43AM -0000, Sprague, ITSN wrote:

> A few feature requests:
> 
> First, scrollbar positioning: Scrollbars are always on the right (unless
> there's a way to change this that I'm not aware of...). Some GTK+ themes
> (GTKstep especially) want to put the scrollbars on the left, and most apps
> allow this. Would it be difficult to make ROX-filer follow the theme's
> preferred scrollbar location? Or, better yet, allow the user to dictate this
> behaviour (runtime or compile-time option).

If you can find out how to get the theme's choice then positioning the bar
on either side is no problem.

> Third: semi-intelligent handling of pinboard/panel icons. If you drag a
> pinboard or panel icon to its doom (into the XFCE trash can, some GNOME/KDE2
> deleter, a recycler on the WindowMaker dock...), the file that it points to
> dies, but the icon itself just shows "ERROR". I'd think that if the file
> that an icon points to disappears, the icon should disappear too (maybe add
> an option to display some type of error message when this happens). This is
> not a huge item, but it's more than a little annoying.

A slight worry here is that using the menu only removes the icon, whereas
dragging to the bin removes the file it points to...

> Collapsable panels, a la KDE/GNOME... I'm not so sure about this one,
> myself, but a few folks that I work with out here think it would be a good
> idea.

How about just sending it to the back where it won't get in the way (like
RISC OS does). Easy to get many WMs to toggle it back and forth on a
hot-key...

> Tabbed panels, something like what OPENSTEP had... this would allow more
> icons to exist on a panel without the necessity to pump up the resolution or
> clutter the desktop with pinboard icons.

Try creating some pinboard apps just above the panel. Give them names
like 'Work' and 'Games' and make their AppRuns do things like:

	#!/bin/sh
	rox --bottom=Games

etc.

You also can scroll long panels by dragging the blank area in the middle.

> Allow mounting of mount points on the pinboard/panel via the right-click
> menu. I know that shift-click works, but it's a minor inconsistency. This
> doesn't bother me, but it's a newbie-friendliness feature. 

Good idea.

> URL links: These could simply be a file that contains the url, with a name
> like foo.url. ROX-filer wouldn't have to handle the URL itself, just do
> something like "mozilla `cat foo.url`". Support dragging these from
> Netscape/Mozilla, Konqueror/KFM, Galeon, etc...

Handling them is easy - just set their run action to 'mozilla `cat "$1"`'
(might have to add an entry in MIME-info?). Dragging should already work
if the app supports the XDND protocol properly as it's just a form of DND
saving...

> Variable-geometry panels (to work better in resolutions other than
> 1024x786/1152x864/1280x1024), since the current panel is ludicrously huge in
> 640x480, and not much better in 800x600, but at 1800x1440, it becomes
> something of a hard target. Maybe this could be handled by the window
> manager?

The height is set by the size of the icons... use larger images and it
should get taller ;-)

> OS/2-style tree and details views? (See DFM for an example of what I mean)
> 
> Multiple panes? Another dubious one, since if you want Konqueror, you know
> where to get it, but, it's been asked by a few folks here. (I've hooked them
> up with various distros of Linux or BSD using WindowMaker, XFCE and
> ROX-filer for the desktop.)

Binding 'n' to 'New Window' is a quick way to get as many new views as you
want. Doing the split within the window is possible, but a little tricky
(would people use this?).


-- 
Thomas Leonard			http://rox.sourceforge.net
ta...@ec...		ta...@us...