Re: scripting

[Jonas De Vuyst <jonas devuyst advalvas be>]

On 12 Mar 2001 11:38:48 -0800, John Sullivan wrote:

> on 3/11/01 9:00 AM, Jonas De Vuyst at jonas devuyst advalvas be wrote:
> 
> >> My question might be stupid, but what if this feature would
> >> apear on the GUI. For exmaple : Imagine that your word
> >> processor can't handle a format but you have a converter.
> >> With the mouse you should redirect the "save as..." dialog's
> >> output into the converter's input.
> > 
> > IIRC BeOS had a special API for converting file formats. I'm not
sure
> > but I vagely recall that there is being worked on that for Gnome...
it
> > could be my imagination though ;-). What I am (more or less ;) sure
of
> > is that someone is working getting "translators" into Nautilus.
> 
> For what it's worth, I am unaware of any such work in Nautilus. At
least,
> there's nothing like that there now, nobody at Eazel is working on it,
and
> I'm not even sure there's a request for it in bugzilla.eazel.com.

I've looked it up and found the answers in the nautilus-list archive
from Februari 2001. My confusion seems to have gotten because I asked
two similar questions back then (heck, it still isn't all obvious to
me). I've pasted some excerpts below.

I'll submit a request to Bugzilla BTW.

Some excerpts that may clear things up (the first three happen to be the
most relevant ones):

>From jonas devuyst advalvas be Sat, 10 Feb 2001 14:01:09 +0100
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 14:01:09 +0100
From: Jonas De Vuyst jonas devuyst advalvas be
Subject: [Nautilus-list] A whole list of feauture requests and bugs

...

- Transparant copying of audio tracks to the hard disk. When a user
drags an
audio track (yes, it should be possible to "mount" audio CDs) to the
hard disk
then a dialog should pop-up asking what format the song should be stored
in,
CDDB should also propose meta-data for MP3s, Ogg Vorbis, etc. This
feauture
request is related to the next one.

- Converting file types. I believe that it is possible in Windows using
ZipMagic to rename a folder to folder.zip and have it convert to a ZIP
file.
It is also possible to access these ZIP files like normal folders using
that
same program, but this is something GnomeVFS already offers. Such a
feature
would be great IMHO, though you probably don't want to limit the
functionality
based on the extension.

...

=====

>From snickell stanford edu Sat, 10 Feb 2001 05:42:07 -0800
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 05:42:07 -0800
From: Seth Nickell snickell stanford edu
Subject: [Nautilus-list] A whole list of feauture requests and bugs

...

> - Transparant copying of audio tracks to the hard disk. When a user
drags an
> audio track (yes, it should be possible to "mount" audio CDs) to the
hard disk
> then a dialog should pop-up asking what format the song should be
stored in,
> CDDB should also propose meta-data for MP3s, Ogg Vorbis, etc. This
feauture
> request is related to the next one.

I thought we did this...? At the very least it has been discussed.
Gnome-VFS can read audio CDs at the very least, and I thought there was
mention of Gene doing conversion stuff at one point, though I could be
entirely mistaken.

...

=====


>From gzr ix netcom com Sat, 10 Feb 2001 09:07:10 -0800
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 09:07:10 -0800
From: Gene Z. Ragan gzr ix netcom com
Subject: [Nautilus-list] A whole list of feauture requests and bugs

Jonas,

Thanks for the suggestions. I can give you some positive news on one of
your
suggested features.

> - Transparant copying of audio tracks to the hard disk. When a user
drags
an
> audio track (yes, it should be possible to "mount" audio CDs) to the
hard
disk
> then a dialog should pop-up asking what format the song should be
stored
in,
> CDDB should also propose meta-data for MP3s, Ogg Vorbis, etc. This
feauture
> request is related to the next one.

There is a gnome-vfs cdda module and experimental support for mounting
audio
cds in Nautilus.  The feature is disabled right now as we try to archive
our
1.0 shipping goal and are focussing on stability and performance issues.
If
you have some hacking skills, it is easy enough to turn these feature on
and rebuild Nautilus.

We use CDDB to name the files and you can drag them from the CD to any
other
mounted volume.  Adding the conversion while copying feature is next on
my
list of things to do to the cdda module.

Gene

=====

>From mjs eazel com 10 Feb 2001 15:24:21 -0800
Date: 10 Feb 2001 15:24:21 -0800
From: Maciej Stachowiak mjs eazel com
Subject: [Nautilus-list] A whole list of feauture requests and bugs

...

> - Converting file types. I believe that it is possible in Windows
using
> ZipMagic to rename a folder to folder.zip and have it convert to a ZIP
file.
> It is also possible to access these ZIP files like normal folders
using that
> same program, but this is something GnomeVFS already offers. Such a
feature
> would be great IMHO, though you probably don't want to limit the
functionality
> based on the extension.

This might be a good feature but I don't tink we want it to be based
on renaming.

...

=====

>From jonas devuyst advalvas be Sun, 11 Feb 2001 00:57:59 +0100
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 00:57:59 +0100
From: Jonas De Vuyst jonas devuyst advalvas be
Subject: [Nautilus-list] A whole list of feauture requests and bugs

...

> > - Converting file types. I believe that it is possible in Windows
using
> > ZipMagic to rename a folder to folder.zip and have it convert to a
ZIP
> file.
> > It is also possible to access these ZIP files like normal folders
using
> that
> > same program, but this is something GnomeVFS already offers. Such a
> feature
> > would be great IMHO, though you probably don't want to limit the
> functionality
> > based on the extension.
>
> This might be a good feature but I don't tink we want it to be based
> on renaming.

If the idea is to allow no extensions then you'll need to come up with a
way
to change MIME types. Perhaps in the properties windows you could allow
people
to edit it (not by using raw MIME types of course), if you were to do
that
then you could present two buttons, one for forcefully changing the MIME
type
and one for converting the file. Just a thought.

...