Better run dialog (was Re: Open Location from anywhere)

[Frank Worsley <fworsley shaw ca>]

Hi Calum,

On Fri, 2004-05-21 at 04:47, Calum Benson wrote:
> There's no reason why they couldn't though (with some judicious renaming
> of the feature)... the "Run" dialog on Windows accepts commands, URLs
> and filenames, and does the right thing with any of them.

Continued from nautilus-list ...

I've also been thinking a little bit about how the run dialog could be
improved. Now that we have spatial Nautilus I often use the run dialog
to quickly open a directory that is somewhere deep in a hierarchy. I
find it quicker to type in the path, than to click through and close a
bunch of Nautilus windows.

I also use the dialog to quickly go to a URL; instead of opening a
browser, waiting till the window is there, finding the location bar, and
then typing the URL.

This has got me thinking, it would be nice if the "Run" dialog was
actually a "Go" dialog that integrates my web bookmarks, file system
bookmarks, applications, and recently used files.

To that end I have made a little mockup:

http://frank.neatstep.com/stuff/run-dialog.png

A dialog like that would make it really quick to go anywhere I want. The
panel's "Run" action would become a "Go" action and could be on the
panel as a one-click way to go to my favorite places. I got my ideas
from the Epiphany bookmark editor.

Some notes:

* Instead of a treeview we could use the split pane view like the
Epiphany bookmark editor.

* When a category is expanded, the second column shows the description
of the item. For applications this is the description from the .desktop
file, for web bookmarks it's the URL, for files it would be the full
path (the title for a file would just be the filename).

* There should be an "Add Bookmark" button so the user can add whatever
is currently typed in the entry as a bookmark. For URLs / commands he
can enter a title, for files we just use the basename as the title.

* Dragging and dropping the icon that is next to the entry over a
category will also add the bookmark.

* Tab-completion in the entry should work with applications, bookmarks,
and file system paths.

* I have absolutely no code to actually accomplish this. ;-)


What do you think about this?

- Frank