Customizable status panel
Posted: 2013-03-27, 22:21 UTC
Hi Christian and all,
I would like to suggest a customizable status panel. One should be able to define it just like a custom tooltip where lines are separated by \n. The interesting new feature would be the ability to define different scopes for values for which it makes sense. The scopes would be:
- current file: TC would pass the filename under cursor to the WDX plugin, just as it is now; this is the default scope
- selected files: TC would pass the file names of all the selected files to the WDX plugin; the plugin could then show eg. the total length of all selected MP3's; the most commonly used codec for the selected videos, etc.
- all files in current dir: TC would either pass the current dir or a list of all files in the current dir to the plugin (up for discussion); same possibilities as above, just without the need to select all files
- current volume: useful for showing the free size, and I am sure there would be other uses
- other scopes - up for discussion
Another (IMO more limited) approach would be that TC only passes the file names to the WDX plugin one by one and then does all the calculations like SUM, AVERAGE, MEDIAN, COUNT, etc. by itself. The advantage would be that there needs to be no update of the plugin interface to be able to pass more than one file name and the benefits would be immediately available. Perhaps we could combine both approaches - allow plugin developers to come up with novel uses for what values can be shown for multiple files while we'd have this (backup) alternative for plugins which would not support this new system of returning one value after processing multiple files.
The next question would be how to define which scope to use for a given WDX plugin field.
Option 1: use new field names in plugins, like [=dirsizecalc.Size.SelectedFiles]
Option 2: the field names stay as they are now, like [dirsizecalc.Size] but a few radio buttons are added to the configuration dialog:
o File under cursor
o Selected files
o All files in current dir
o Current volume
If a legacy plugin cannot handle more than one file only the radio button "File under cursor" would be available.
This is pretty much an idea in progress. Any discussion about how this would best be implemented is very much welcome.
Thank you
Roman
I would like to suggest a customizable status panel. One should be able to define it just like a custom tooltip where lines are separated by \n. The interesting new feature would be the ability to define different scopes for values for which it makes sense. The scopes would be:
- current file: TC would pass the filename under cursor to the WDX plugin, just as it is now; this is the default scope
- selected files: TC would pass the file names of all the selected files to the WDX plugin; the plugin could then show eg. the total length of all selected MP3's; the most commonly used codec for the selected videos, etc.
- all files in current dir: TC would either pass the current dir or a list of all files in the current dir to the plugin (up for discussion); same possibilities as above, just without the need to select all files
- current volume: useful for showing the free size, and I am sure there would be other uses
- other scopes - up for discussion
Another (IMO more limited) approach would be that TC only passes the file names to the WDX plugin one by one and then does all the calculations like SUM, AVERAGE, MEDIAN, COUNT, etc. by itself. The advantage would be that there needs to be no update of the plugin interface to be able to pass more than one file name and the benefits would be immediately available. Perhaps we could combine both approaches - allow plugin developers to come up with novel uses for what values can be shown for multiple files while we'd have this (backup) alternative for plugins which would not support this new system of returning one value after processing multiple files.
The next question would be how to define which scope to use for a given WDX plugin field.
Option 1: use new field names in plugins, like [=dirsizecalc.Size.SelectedFiles]
Option 2: the field names stay as they are now, like [dirsizecalc.Size] but a few radio buttons are added to the configuration dialog:
o File under cursor
o Selected files
o All files in current dir
o Current volume
If a legacy plugin cannot handle more than one file only the radio button "File under cursor" would be available.
This is pretty much an idea in progress. Any discussion about how this would best be implemented is very much welcome.
Thank you
Roman