Some ideas
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 2:56 pm
To continue my conversation with Michael about some new features, here are some of my ideas.
1. Notifications for background tasks (copying, moving, updating) when file manager window is not in foreground (via growl and/or notification center). Those are easily done (here is an example with a delayed notification, but you also can use deliverNotification method instead of scheduleNotification) and can be really useful in many cases.
(to Michael: no, your app doesn't need to be in MAS, the only thing you should do is to sign your app with your developer ID and use a correct bundle ID, i've tested it myself yesterday)
2. Connection manager with persistent connections to be able to switch between locations without the need to wait for reconnection. That probably speaks for itself, but in terms of how it should look i have a nice example how it's done in ForkLift:
As you can see there is a bar on the left where you can click to connect to any pre-defined server. Then it becomes available in the "connections" section where you can disconnect it when needed.
Actually there is no need to do it that way, since it will take a lot of time. Easier way is to have another menu section on the top, called "connections" or something like that. When we press it we get a list of created servers in the dropdown menu, and "edit..." option to be able to control this list.
Connected servers can be marked with green dot, ctrl-click will disconnect from a server.
Like that (very quick and dirty mock-up):
That way we will get easy and convenient way to manage server list and connections.
3. Improved "rename in place" function. That's difficult to describe, so i decided to show it in details.
Pressing ctrl-f6 for the first time (default hotkey for this action):
Pressing ctrl-f6 again:
Pressing ctrl-f6 for the third time:
More presses will do the same process from the beginning.
4. Ability to disable cursor following when scrolling with mouse wheel. This is really annoying sometimes, and doesn't make any sense, since you can't reliably select anything with mouse wheel anyway.
Suggestions/criticism are welcome
1. Notifications for background tasks (copying, moving, updating) when file manager window is not in foreground (via growl and/or notification center). Those are easily done (here is an example with a delayed notification, but you also can use deliverNotification method instead of scheduleNotification) and can be really useful in many cases.
(to Michael: no, your app doesn't need to be in MAS, the only thing you should do is to sign your app with your developer ID and use a correct bundle ID, i've tested it myself yesterday)
2. Connection manager with persistent connections to be able to switch between locations without the need to wait for reconnection. That probably speaks for itself, but in terms of how it should look i have a nice example how it's done in ForkLift:
As you can see there is a bar on the left where you can click to connect to any pre-defined server. Then it becomes available in the "connections" section where you can disconnect it when needed.
Actually there is no need to do it that way, since it will take a lot of time. Easier way is to have another menu section on the top, called "connections" or something like that. When we press it we get a list of created servers in the dropdown menu, and "edit..." option to be able to control this list.
Connected servers can be marked with green dot, ctrl-click will disconnect from a server.
Like that (very quick and dirty mock-up):
That way we will get easy and convenient way to manage server list and connections.
3. Improved "rename in place" function. That's difficult to describe, so i decided to show it in details.
Pressing ctrl-f6 for the first time (default hotkey for this action):
Pressing ctrl-f6 again:
Pressing ctrl-f6 for the third time:
More presses will do the same process from the beginning.
4. Ability to disable cursor following when scrolling with mouse wheel. This is really annoying sometimes, and doesn't make any sense, since you can't reliably select anything with mouse wheel anyway.
Suggestions/criticism are welcome