GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 168460
FileChooser too hermetic
Last modified: 2005-03-09 00:32:00 UTC
Hi, I am complaining about poor GtkFileChooser's API, chooser interface, chooser widget and chooser dialog. There are no functions for widget customization. I can not manipulate on embedded TreeView, what would be usefull for example to present thumbnails.
Exposing the internals makes us unable to change them. This meant we were stuck with a fixed user interface design of the old GtkFileSelection for 5 years and were unable to improve it. If you have specific needs for additional API in GtkFileChooser interface, then you should file requests for specific additions.
I need additional fields (columns) in the embedded TreeView. They could be indicated at widget creation (like gkt_clist_new_with_titles), or added after (like gtk_tree_view_append_column). Also default columns could be manipulated in such custom mode. Second problem is columns filling and looks complicated, since I am not very familiar with your 5 years stuck problem. Suppose that I have a function, that creates a widget for specified column and file-item. Giving such creator at chooser creation seems to be the most hermetic way. It is also the least flexible. For example adding thumbnails will take a lot of time, so developer may want some gtk_main()ing before operation is finished. Standard solution in such case is another thread, but to do it we need to operate from the outside of gtk_... function as I think.
You'd need to file separate bugs with concrete proposed APIs.
Please read this: http://primates.ximian.com/~federico/docs/file-chooser-extension-spec/index.html
... and also this mailing list thread http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2004-September/msg00072.html