====== Thunar 1.4 Roadmap (Xfce 4.10) ======

===== [FOR 4.12] Improve User Directories Experience =====

Thunar 1.2 automatically creates user directories if they do not exist upon opening (e.g. via the Go menu). This sucks. What we want is:

  - Enabling users to define user directories on their own (if we can).
  - Not to show undefined user directories in the Go menu.
  - Ask the user to create a user directory if it is defined but does not exist.

**We've decided to drop users dirs entirely and instead show user-defined bookmarks in the ''Go'' menu. Perhaps we can add a separate settings dialog for user directories but in Thunar, we leave the choice of what to appear in the menu to users.**

Completed: 0% \\
Assignee: \\
Difficulty: Easy

===== [FOR 4.12] Integrate Remote Locations into the Side and Tree Pane =====

Right now, there is no way to “bookmark” remote locations. Thunar only allows directories as bookmarks. I've heard reports that re-using the existing bookmarks concept for was found to be inappropriate and confusing for end users. http://www.bomahy.nl/hylke/blog/clutter-in-nautilus-sidebar/ might be a good starting point for a better side pane. I'm conerned about high numbers of partitions in the side pane though. We probably want something that can be expanded/collapsed better, e.g. by grouping partitions per drive using a custom composite widget. This would also have user experience benefits as people would be able to mount/unmount entire drives at once and not just individual partitions.

Completed: 0% \\
Assignee: Jannis \\
Difficulty: Moderate \\
Related item in the Design SIG: [[/design/thunar/shortcuts-pane|shortcuts-pane]]

===== [FINISHED] Improve Tumbler Integration =====

Right now Thunar only generates thumbnails (on-demand, which is good). It should also use the cache API provided by tumbler to e.g. delete a thumbnail when a file is removed or to copy/update the thumbnail when a file is copied. Stuff like that. That needs integration of ThunarThumbnailer in various jobs which is not too complicated. We also need a way to cancel requests when switching between folders. That is a bit more complicated as it implies requester-awareness in ThunarThumbnailer.

At FOSDEM, Nick and I talked about this and we now have a plan:

  - Add a ThunarThumbnailer to ThunarPropertiesDialog (or the main properties page at least) and ThunarStandardView.
  - In the standard view, the following situations need to be handled:
    - When a new path is set all pending requests made by the standard view are unqueued.
    - When the scroll position (horizontal or vertical) changes we reschedule a timeout (something like 250ms or 500ms) until at some point the position doesn't change again and the timeout source function is called. 
    - When the timeout function is called, we queue a single request for all the visible files.
    - When there is a new scroll position change, we unqueue that request and reschedule the timeout.
    - When the scroll position changes and the last event was a key or mouse button release event, we cancel the timeout and directly queue in an idle handler, assuming that the user won't resume scrolling within that time frame.
    - When the viewport size changes (upon window resize, side window resize or switch between path bar and location bar) we unqueue all pending requests and queue a request for the new visible area.
  - When a file supported by tumbler changes in any way, we queue a single thumbnail request for this (also for rename, move, delete we need to call the ''org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1'' service).
  - Clean up the thumbnail cache every once in a while using the ''org.freedesktop.thumbnails.Cache1'' interface.

Completed: 100% \\
Assignee: Jannis \\
Difficulty: Moderate

===== [FOR 4.12] Sort by Extension =====

It would be nice if we allow to sort by extension. See [[http://foo-projects.org/pipermail/thunar-dev/2010-November/004796.html|this]] request on the mailing list. Perhaps we can also allow plugins to install their own columns. That's more complicated and a separate (but partly related) feature though.

Completed: 0% \\
Assignee: \\
Difficulty: Moderate

===== [FINISHED] Improve Responsiveness of File Operations =====

With file operations like delete and trash it takes a while for the deleted files to disappear in the view. 
For new files (create, link etc.) we have added a workaround to reload the view (because there we have the new_files closure).
It would be nice to have a similar closure or feature for file trashing/deletion/copy/move and in thunar-uca where g_file_monitor_emit_event is not working.

ThunarVFS used a global timeout for all feed events, maybe we can introduce something similar in Thunar.

Completed: 100% \\
Assignee: Nick\\
Difficulty: Easy - Moderate

===== [FOR 4.12] Replace xfdesktop by adding a Thunarx Interface for Desktop Extensions ====

xfdesktop requires a lot of file management functionality for the file icon view. This results in a high amount of code duplication even when using Thunar's D-Bus interface. We'd like to change this by replacing xfdesktop with a plugin for Thunar. 

The plugin would reside in a separate shared library to avoid a Thunar dependency on libwnck (for people who don't want to use the Thunar desktop). "thunar --daemon" would typically also take over the desktop but this can be disabled explicitely using an xfconf property and of course by removing the thunar-desktop-plugin package. 

Completed: 0% \\
Assignee: \\
Difficulty: Hard