Re: A little help for GWorkspace

[Jeff Macht]

At 02:12 AM 1/12/01 +0200, you wrote:
>I think that checking only the selected directory is not a good
>solution; consider these two examples:
>
>1)
>If the path of the last column of the browser is, for example,
>"/home/enrico/Grivei/sviluppo/FileManagers/Gworkspace" and you delete or
>move to an other location "/home/enrico/Grivei/sviluppo", the viewer must
>cut the columns at "/home/enrico/Grivei/".
>

Yes. This is can be one option (cutting the columns). But, the selected
directory will have some property that changes, for instance, the notion of
its existance or not. At that point, one can try to open directories up the
tree until an existing directory is found. I don't think that this would be
a problem.

>2)
>As on openstep, you can view the contents of an app wrapper, let's say
>"/usr/GNUstep/Local/Apps/ProjectCenter.app", only if you
>choose "Open as Folder" from the "File" menu. (or alt->double-click on
>the icon).
>
>This creates a new viewer window in which, the first column of the browser 
>is /usr/GNUstep/Local/Apps/ProjectCenter.app.
>
>Now, if you delete from a terminal this directory or one of its parents,
>the new viewer window must close.

Again, it's  the same situation as above. The application directory
disappears, and some state involving the current directory has changed.

Closing a window without the user's input? Not so sure about that. I would
rather remove the columns that do not exist, display some message in the
window (where the columns used to be) stating that there were files that
were removed, and then allow the user to go up the tree at their
convenience. Major actions should be a result of action by the user.
Actually, in this case, there was indirect action (the act of moving the
directory), but it's always better to be friendly.

Another thing you might think of is to check for updates to the current
directory more often then checking for directories further up the
hierarchy. For instance, check the current directory every one second, and
check each of the parent directories every five seconds. If you can check
the directory modification time, this would not require much processing time.

Jeff.