GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 122045
Information-Sidebar should display informations about the selected object
Last modified: 2009-05-28 09:48:28 UTC
Currently the information-sidebar displays information about the activated object (means; I "opened" the folder/file/object with a double-click into a view). The information-sidebar displays also a list of "Open with.."-Possibilities. This leads to inconsitency with "File->Open with.." and the context-menu "Open with..", which both use the currently selected (highlighted) file/folder/object as context. The information-sidebare should therefore also display informations about the currently selected file.
Created attachment 25761 [details] [review] patch is for nautilus-window-manage-views.c
I agree with the idea that the information panel should show information for the selection rather than the current URI. But this will only show info for one file in the selection. We need to think about the best way to present this for all of the files in the selection.
Well, one way the Information panel could be useful when selecting many files is to keep count of the # files and the total selected size. I was thinking that it could also be useful if it could split the count by file type. say "10 images + 20 Text Documents + 5 Unknown Files". Something like that. Then for the action buttons you could offer the same things that are available in the context menu. Just my JM$0.02
*** Bug 310349 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Well at least for the time being it would make sense to just hide the file type (it's useless right now, as explained in bug 310349), and re-enable it later when the info pane shows details for the selection. Actually when this bug was opened you *could* get info for other file type by opening them in a nautilus view. This is not possible anymore, so all you ever get is info about the opened folder. In this context, the only useful info is the size and date - even the 'open with...' buttons are of limited use.
I have submitted a patch to fix this bug : http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2005-July/msg00211.html
http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=17567 is about that: "Currently the information sidebar is of very limited use because it only shows info about the currently open folder. It would be much more useful to display info on the selected object(s). And it could be improved by also showing metadata and some action buttons. http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/attachment.cgi?id=4525 Information sidebar mockup I have attached a mockup I found that someone created for kde4 but it shows nicely what I would expect from an info sidebar and how it could be more useful."
I like the mockup. Maybe we can hack something similar together based on Vincent's patch. For now, it would only display selection info for one selected file.
New ubuntu related bug : https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/13253
That patch no longer applies, that file (nautilus-window-manage-views.c) has changed a lot. Also the link to the ubuntu bug with the mockup, no longer works and no goes to a bug about a wireless hardware issue.
Just to add support for this missing nautilus feature (file properties in the side panel). Looks like all the required info is already handled by nautilus in File>Properties
Created attachment 107829 [details] [review] Patch against 2.22 to make information and notes follow current selection Patch against 2.22 to make information and notes follow current selection. Includes change to nautilus preferences window, to enable/disable this behavior.
Created attachment 107830 [details] [review] Patch to make the information sidebar show the thumbnail instead of a generic icon Patch to make the information sidebar show the thumbnail instead of a generic icon
status?
Could prove a useful feature, can't wait to see it in nautilus :)
I committed a patch to master, based on these patches. Closing as FIXED, thanks for the patches Amos. commit 518a1ae6ba0a3e09236f944ee655334087d5ddee Author: Cosimo Cecchi <cosimoc@gnome.org> Date: Thu May 28 11:43:14 2009 +0200 Display information about the selected object Display information about the selected object in the "Information" sidebar, using thumbnails if possible. Also, remove the "Open with" buttons there for directories. Fix bug #122045, thanks to Amos Brocco.