2005-06-12
GNOME's "object" view in Nautilus (Spatial) is very interesting.
Object Properties
It is possible to make the object metaphor more interesting by providing a way to open up a view that lists all the changes made to that object, and the ability to view customizations inherited from its parent objects. The ability to alter these properties will make it more useful.
For more advanced users, the ability to visually survey and modify all default, altered and inherited properties would be nice touch. There can be options to make child objects inherit or not inherit attributes.
Inheritance
Child objects should inherit attributes from their parents (where it makes sense), unless explicitly overridden either in the parent's attributes or overridden by the child object.
Example:
If I have public_html directory in my home directory, the object view for that directory is given a light grayish blue background color, all sub-folders, that is, child objects in object view, should inherit the background color attribute. This is what one would expect.
Which of the properties of the parent object are inherited, should be configurable, for instance, background color should be inherited, but emblems should not be.
Going Overboard with Actions
We are all familiar with "open all image file with this" kind of customizations. What about setting it per object? (I have heard that Macintosh OS lets you do this, but since I do not use Macintosh OS, I cannot confirm this.)
Think of a folder that automatically archives anything older than a certain period of time. All its sub-folders will inherit this behavior, unless overridden. Special folders and different views of folders in GUI environments are existing examples of this. However, things will get more interesting when the user can easily drag and drop actions to file system objects.
Posted by FiniteState42i @22:43
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