Re: [Usability] A file information preview system in Nautilus

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 1 Jun 2008, at 15:42, Jeff Fortin wrote:

> Now, why do we need this you say? Excerpts from the idea I suggested  
> initially: "I'm constantly switching between eye-candy  
> (nautilus with image thumbnails) and performance (nautilus with only  
> icons), and I realized the reason I switch back to "thumbnails" is  
> that I need to differentiate a handful files from each other, with  
> similar names, when I'm working on a project."
>
> I want the best of both worlds: unobtrusive "no preview" image  
> icons, but thumbnailing on demand without needing to enable/disable  
> it system-wide all the time.

This is exactly the problem that Apple went on to solve with the  
QuickLook feature in OS X Leopard... you just press Space to bring up  
a medium-size preview of whatever's selected in the file manager (it  
handles multiple selections nicely too), or whatever attachment is  
selected in a mail message.  For media files and multi-page documents,  
the preview is interactive (i.e. you can scroll/page through it).  For  
image files, you have the option to add them straight to your iPhoto  
library.  And it's all extensible via plug-ins for different file types.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems