RE: GWorkspace.app Feature Request-- Tabbed Shelf

[Nicolas Roard]

On 2003-06-27 02:08:47 +0000 "Vaisburd, Haim" <HVaisbur@Advent.COM> wrote:

Hi,

> I've read the spec.
> I though, that, instead, the best thing to standartize
> is the protocol of the service that provides the thumbnail images.
>
> Instead of going to ~/.thumbnails, the application that wants a thumbnail
> would ask it from this service. Storage place, hashing scheme, update
> policy,
> deletion algorithm would then become and implementation details of that
> service (and yes, they are outlined nicely in this article).
>
> E.g.
> @protocol GSThumbnailRepository
>
> (NSImage *) -thumbnailForURI: (NSString*) uri Size: (NSSize) size;
>
> // (NSEnumerator *) ??
> (NSArray *) -thumbnailsForDir: (NSString*) dir Size: (NSSize) size;
>
> @end

hm... I'm not sure, NSApplication iconForFile: is already there and
used for getting a representation of a file. I think it's simpler to use it.
What I think is interessting is that the thumbnails are used everywhere (well 
on each application using -iconForFile:),
while if we relay on a service for that, only the application which
explicitely wants thumbnail will ask for them. I duno, I think
it's better to have a coherent behavoir between app ?
>   From: Nicolas Roard [nicolas@roard.com]
> > I don't see much other applications using it
>
> I though every application that has "Open File" dialog might
> use it...

hm, no, the Open File dialog don't display icons..

>   From: Enrico Sersale [enrico@dtedu.net]
> > It simply creates an image from a file:
> > -initWithContentsOfFile:
>
> Can this work if the file is not an image?

nobody prevents that of course :-)

> That spec tells about thumbnails for spreadsheets,
> text documents, etc. I got an impression that only
> the program that understands the file format can create
> a thumbnail. That's the reason I liked the service idea
> in the first place: the service could launch a process
> that creates a thumbnail image if it's not there.

hm... yes that's right, we ideally need that the applications
themselves creates the thumbnails.
For getting the thumbnails, I prefers to stay with
NSApplication iconForFile; for creating them, in the
first place a simple service could do it, for common
(images) files. But effectively, having applications
registering for creating thumbnails is interessting.

In fact, it leads to a more broad problem, it would
be cool to have a way for an application to register
themselves for doing some actions (DO's methods)
Sort of services, but  more general, and directly
callable by an application ...

So an application could for example register and advertises themselves as 
capable of doing
the two methods of GSThumbnailRepository; (but for a defined type of file); a 
potential calling application will then ask which apps understand the defined 
protocol and then call the app by DO.

In fact, it joins what Stefan Urbanek discussed
earlier in order to have a full scriptable environment...

Anyway; while this would be very cool and probably
something we need to do, for a start, a simple service
for creating image thumbnails would be enough :-)

--
Nicolas Roard