File Panel alternative

Hey

Do you have a working build with that setup? I would be interested to try it.

Cheers

Zitz

Well.

I would prefer bold, but of course I understand the 'some fonts cant be bolded'-argument. Maybe we could have both and then people could remove the status column, if they don't care about it.

Last edited by ghostdog (2008-06-19 11:48:08)

Very nice.

I added some basic support for side panes in r901. The left/bottom pane is always a fixed size, so I don't think horizontal scroll will be necessary for the playlist. I did it in a general way so hopefully other things can take advantage of it in the future (Last.fm pane? HMM!!)

Last edited by vspader (2008-06-20 21:58:49)

Neat. This works surprisingly well.

I wonder if anyone actually still prefer the panel/floating window though.

The panel still offers the advantage that it can be placed anywhere and can be completely different shapes and sizes than the main window.

That, however, is also its weakness; because it is completely separate from the main window, if you want to move "Cog," you'd have to move the main window, then move the File Tree Panel (and the Spotlight Panel if that's open as well).

I wonder if it's worth also offering the panels/floating windows as well as the panes.

Also, I do agree that the Info Drawer should be turned into a pane.

Or even better, an Inspector/floating window, such that its larger size would make it ready if one day, tag viewing/editing is added.

Seems like drawers are slowly being phased out nowadays... One thing I never liked about drawers is that they can appear either at the top/bottom (or on the left/right) depending on the window's location/size.

I think I'm going to take a cue from Firefox and call it the sidebar.

Technically, this could be extended so any of them could be shoved in a sidepane, drawer, or panel. Although...I don't know how crazy I want to get with it.

I think sidebar works best for now though, and one at a time is good enough.

r903 has a proof of concept for using them in windows too. It just doesn't have the autosaving goodness (yet). I dunno how this is going to end up, but it's one step closer to moving this stuff into a plugin.

The file inspector has an advantage: it does not changes the size of the main window, so the column widths and the info visible are always the same. Another advantage: it disappear when Cog is in background, thus leaving only the main window, with the data one may want to read also with Cog in background (i.e.: next track name).

I think the info drawer should not become a pane, because Panes have some sizes constrained. An inspector would be better: it disappears when not on top, can have a completely free size, ...

My initial reaction is - I don't like it. I fear it would get a bit festive... In a corny kind of way

Thinking about it it might work out...

If we go down this road, think carefully... before deciding the colour though. I would hat to have a blue line or a red one to disturb the eye. Another way to achieve this could be inverting the colours, have the currently playing song be in a black line and the text white. (Yes I know, it would probably be quite ugly.)

At the moment cog isn't the most customizable app in the world. Hopefully this will change. Then it will be great, people can do whatever they want.