Easily Distracted

I decided that before I did any more work on the applet, I would improve its installation process to make it easier for people to try it out. So, the process to get and build the source now looks like this:

Download

• Browse source here.
• Download the source: bzr branch http://stevenbrown.ca/src/FileListApplet

Install

1. Install dependencies (Ubuntu package names given): sudo apt-get install python-xdg python-gnome2-desktop python-gtk2 python-pyinotify
2. Branch the source using the bzr command, above.
3. cd into the directory.
4. ./configure --prefix=/usr (the prefix is important!)
5. make
6. sudo make install
7. If the applet does not show up in your Add to Panel menu, try restarting the bonobo-activation-server: killall bonobo-activation-server.

Autotools

Autotools is pretty much the standard in source package management on linux. Except for the name, there is nothing automatic about autotools. Every encounter I’ve had with autotools has usually defeated me and left me frustrated and leaving whatever I was working on to do something else. For me, because I had labeled it the next step, it basically stalled the entire project for a while. Most people tend to copy and paste other projects’ autotools setup, but I figured that was overkill for my purposes and I didn’t find anything that quite suited me. I looked at gnome-blog, but it seemed like some stuff wasn’t quite working properly and some was completely unnecessary… in fact, this seemed to be a trend when looking at the autotools stuff in projects. Why is this? Autotools is not simple and due to this simple fact, I think it fails completely on many levels. Developers massage it enough to get it working, but few actually understand it all – I know I sure don’t! So please forgive the sloppiness and feel free to send patches. I gave up doing a couple things, like getting the revision number (bzr revno) and including it in the version string (see configure.ac). I know it’s probably something super simple, but I couldn’t seem to pass a variable containing a string as the version….

I feel that GNOME, as a platform for development, could seriously benefit from some kind of frontend to autotools that handled GNOME development nicely and hid as much as possible from the developer (including all those nasty config files that pollute the package tree). Anyway, I did not have an enjoyable time grappling with autotools, but I’ll end this mini-rant here.

Lots of people customize their desktops. Many don’t, but I do.. a little. Here’s mine:

I actually had to remove the Time Tracker (Hamster) applet to scale my 1280×1024 desktop down to 1024, but I think that was all. And I only just decided to try moving the Tomboy and Deskbar applets over to the top-left corner… looks a little odd, but it’s much more accessible. It’s good to try out new things, right? (When the keyboard will do, Alt+F12 and Alt+F3 for Tomboy and Deskbar, and Super(windows-key)+Space for Gnome-Do are good shortcuts to keep in mind.)

How about you? (If you run Ubuntu, read this – which is why I tried scaling my 1280 desktop to a 1024, in the first place).

This is kind of a proof of concept I’ve been playing with. The idea is that finding a file within a folder is often easier by type, and you are often only interested in the most recently modified file. The problem with a file manager is that although you can easily sort by either type or modification time, you cannot filter your view of all the other files you’re not interested in. I previously wanted to address this issue within Nautilus, (and I still believe this functionality would be wonderful in Nautilus), but I ended up doing this much less ambitious applet as a proof of concept.

This applet will let you add any number of folders to it, and will try to categorize the files automatically and intelligently. Currently, it’s more automatic than intelligent as it just looks at the mime-type. Even so, I’ve found it especially useful for keeping track of all my downloads:

Steven is catching up on the latest on planet.gnome.org and has downloaded a couple screencasts demoing the latest and greatest. These files are typically 2-10 megabytes, so they didn’t download instantly. Steven continues reading and forgot about the screencasts until a couple hours later. At that time, he can simply click on the File List Applet, select Downloads, select Video, and look at the top of the list for the newest files. Steven is happy. When finished, he can follow the same process to delete them – without once opening his file manager and being assaulted with ALL the files in his Downloads folder.

Ultimately, I would like to extend the idea to provide the same type/subtype menu system for all files under all folders – a type of summary – but I have not implemented that yet. There are other features in the cooking pot, as well, but I have to get started on some “RL” tasks… like my resume.

Screencast

I had a problem recording audio, so I ended up typing as narration. Unfortunately, this makes the YouTube one pretty unwatchable, but you can give the “HQ” version a try.

• FileListAppletDemo.ogv (Original Quality, 1280×1024, 53MB)
• YouTube “HQ” vid

Download

No tarball yet as it’s still extremely rough.
Browse the source here.
Branch the source: bzr branch http://stevenbrown.ca/src/FileListApplet

Install

Update 2009/04/05: Updated install instructions here. (Some people don’t look at the comments….)

Installing will require some manual modifications.

1. First, make sure you have the following packages (Ubuntu): python-xdg, python-gnome2-desktop, python-gtk2, python-pyinotify
2. Then branch the source.
3. Adjust the FileListApplet.server file’s location to wherever you keep it.
4. Then copy FileListApplet.server to /usr/lib/bonobo/servers/.
5. Restart the bonobo-activation-server. killall bonobo-activation-server
6. Add it to the panel like other applets.

Update 2008/12/05: Added a couple screenshots.

In GNOMEe 2.24, hamster-applet will be included by default. When I use it, I love it. I should use it more often.

I should note that “laundry” is actually inclusive to other room-cleaning activities.

This plugin will display the View : Jump to Playing Song link as a button in the toolbar and/or as link in the Browser’s context menu. Other Rhythmbox plugins can be found here.

Screenshots

Using a future version of Rhythmbox – patch here – the menu item will appear in a plugin placeholder, above Properties. Otherwise, it will appear at the bottom, like previous versions.

From version 0.3, the Open Folder plugin will also be placed in the plugin placeholder.

Changes Since 0.2

Just a couple small changes since 0.2.

• Selecting the context menu option in the preferences will now display the link in PodcastView and PlaylistView popups, as well as BrowserView and QueuePlaylistView.
• Assuming the patch on bug 557152 is applied, this will place the context menu items in a plugin placeholder and allow the Preferences to remain the last menu item.
• Update (Nov 10 2008): Modified version of patch has been applied to RB development trunk, so the next version of Rhythmbox will have this update. Yay! Version 0.3.1 of jump-to-playing is to account for the modifications. Please use it.

Download

jump-to-playing-0.3.tar.gz jump-to-playing-0.3.1.tar.gz
Browse the Source: Here
Grab the Source: bzr branch "http://stevenbrown.ca/src/jump-to-playing/"

Installation

1. Extract the jump-to-playing folder into your ~/.gnome2/rhythmbox/plugins/ directory. Completely replace any previous versions.
2. (Re)Start Rhythmbox and enable the plugin in Edit : Plugins.

Todo

From my previous post.

• the gconf keys in gconf-editor say they have no schema. The main plugins’ keys have a schema and don’t give a warning. Definitely not serious, though.
• it currently adds/removes the ui string when the options are toggled in the configure dialog. I have a feeling it might be better to only add/remove them in the activation/deactivation, and just hide/show here. Maybe faster?
• it currently hides the browser button in small display mode. That has nothing to do with the jump-to-playing button. That should be in core, if it was decided that was the desired behaviour.
• to hide the buttons in the small display, it checks the value at activation, and it connects to the View menu’s toggleButton’s “toggled” signal. So whenever it’s toggled, the gconf value for the small display mode is checked, but I think there’s a delay sometimes. Pushing Ctrl D quickly a few times may result in incorrect UI presented. I remember deciding that this is due to a delay set on the gconf callback to overcome some other bug….

All patches are welcome!

Update 2008/10/26: Added screenshot, descriptions to screenshots, and link to main plugin page.

Update 2008/11/10: Added link to version 0.3.1 and added description.

I haven’t looked at the plugin for a while, but I’ve been meaning to reproduce my “todo” list for it that I wrote on the rb-dev list a while back.

• the gconf keys in gconf-editor say they have no schema. The main plugins’ keys have a schema and don’t give a warning. Definitely not serious, though.
• it currently adds/removes the ui string when the options are toggled in the configure dialog. I have a feeling it might be better to only add/remove them in the activation/deactivation, and just hide/show here. Maybe faster?
• it currently hides the browser button in small display mode. That has nothing to do with the jump-to-playing button. That should be in core, if it was decided that was the desired behaviour.
• to hide the buttons in the small display, it checks the value at activation, and it connects to the View menu’s toggleButton’s “toggled” signal. So whenever it’s toggled, the gconf value for the small display mode is checked, but I think there’s a delay sometimes. Pushing Ctrl D quickly a few times may result in incorrect UI presented. I remember deciding that this is due to a delay set on the gconf callback to overcome some other bug….
• in the context menus, ‘Properties’ should really be the last item. They need a placeholder put in the UI core. UPDATE: I’ve filed a bug with a patch attached here. Jump-to-Playing and other plugins will need to be updated when the patch is applied. I’ve just done it on my local copy w/Rhythmbox HEAD…. Looks like this:
  

  Before (red) and After (green) applying the patch and using an updated plugin

• Show the context menu item in PodcastView and PlaylistView popups, as well. I’ve added this in my local copy, already. Maybe I should just bump the version and release….