Re: [Usability] Two proposals for file-selection

[Julien Olivier <julo altern org>]

(snip good idea)

> I really would like to know what do you think about the usability of
> this, and the applicability to GTK/GNOME file selectors
> 

Hi Daniel.

I think your proposal is very near to my idea of an ideal file way to
find files in a file chooser. However, I have an even more radical
solution: why not simply show all the user-accessible files matching a
given mime-type in one list, sorted on mime-type-specific metadata
fields ?

For example, when loading music, you should see all the music files on
which you have read access, and this list should be sorted the same way
it is sorted in rhythmbox (by artist/album/genre). A "search" entry
would be great too.

That way, you can get rid of the directory structure entirely.

The only (big) drawback of such a solution is that, using current
technology, I guess it would be *very* slow, because you would have to:
 - sniff all user-accessible files in order to determine their mime-type
(each time).
 - sniff the content of the matching files to get their metadata.

PS: I'm not really aware of the state of database-based file-systems and
projects like "storage" so I'm sorry if what I'm talking about is just
pure science-fiction.

-- 
Julien Olivier <julo altern org>