[gcmd-dev] shopping cart and active selection

[Micha]

Piotr Eljasiak <address@hidden>:
| I'm not sure if I grok you right - do you mean: defining some
| (predefined?) actions for the shopping cart contents like burning ?


Yes, for example for burning. 
I think, burning is something most users will do more often,
so it could be a 'predefined' = inbuilt feature.

But there are several possibilities how actions can be applied to 
the cart, for example 

- by right click menu entry ('programs' of the options configurator)
- by calling a plugin
- or by implementing a toolbar button

(It's a question if there could be a configurable toolbar where you 
can add buttons for plugins, but that's another story - plugins are 
somewhat in the middle between 'inbuilt' and 'custom' since not 
everybody may be able to hack a plugin quickly for some purpose, 
so there would probably be an online archive on the homepage where 
you can download some of them, or maybe a seperate package of the
respective distro - not unlikely to firefrox extensions.)

The idea came up when i read about other filemanagers.
Some (e.g. nautilus) offer the possibility to put files into a special
'burn' folder. But that's somewhat tedious, it offers no real advantage 
over a full featured burning program where you can do just the same.
With a shopping cart, you don't need to 'go' to that folder in one pane,
to be able to drag&drop files there. You don't need a pane for that.
You just click on files and apply 'add to shopping cart', so you can burn
now or at any point later, you always have two panes available for 
whatever you're doing (like, looking for more files to add).
It's just a little bit more comfortable.

The real advantage for the shopping cart is, you can collect a list 
of files (say, pictures) and perform different actions on it.
There may be predefined actions inbuilt in gcmd (and, for example,
with it's own button) which should be easy to implement.
But the power is that a user also can add cutom actions,
e.g. via the 'programs' configurator, or by installing plugins.

There is another question: If a plugin or custom program
call should be able to work on both, the cart or just the
active selection, then you need a way to say 'do that on 
the shopping cart and not on the active selection'. 
Take for example 'make a zip archive'.
It could work on the cart by default, and then i have to
clear the cart, add the selection and then call the 
program. But that's 3 clicks, and maybe i've already filled the
cart with another collection, which is not finished, and then it's 
uncomfortable to erase it only for this thing i like to do inbetween.
So i like to say 'do it on the active selection, this time'.
Acting on the active selection should be (as is) the default.
So, how comes the cart into play, in this example ?
(I 'solved' this with my shellscript cart 'program' simply
in the way that it always acts on the cart only, but this is 
just a hack, not really professional)

It should be as short as possible, of course...
Maybe something like middle-click instead of left-click,
on the respective menu entry or button ?

(Now, is this more 'grokky' ?  ;)