Re: GWorkspace.app Feature Request-- Tabbed Shelf

[Fred Kiefer]

Hi Richard,

I like the idea of implementing the thumbnailer as a filter service. 
Great, that you did find the time to implement this feature into GNUstep!

> I've changed my mind ... someone pointed out that -iconForFile
> is supposed to return an icon representing the type of file,
> eg. the icon should be the same for all jpegs, and the same for all
> gifs, so you can immediately see what kind of file it represents,
> rather than the contents.
>
> So I now think that -iconForFile should not return a thumbnail,
> and applications wanting to use thumbnails should just use
> a line of code like -
>
> thumbnail = [[NSPasteboard pasteboardByFilteringFile: @"filename.xxx"]
>   dataForType: @"Thumbnail:128x128"];

But you might be wrongly informed here. There are different methods 
iconForType: which should just do what you describe and iconForFile: 
which may do whatever it wants, but should fallback to iconForType: if 
it doesn't have any better icon. Looking at it that way, returning a 
thumbnail looks like a valid way to go (of course only when an option to 
do so is set)