Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Iguleder]

Hey guys, at the moment I'm messing with ROX-Filer. I took a look at the git repo and it seems that development is kinda ... dead. The last commit dates back to August.

So here's what I was thinking about - why don't we set up a git repo and adopt ROX-Filer? The mtPaint maintainer is a puppian and it's great - he fixed many bugs and made mtPaint both a better application and a better application for Puppy. Having the ROX-Filer maintainer on the Puppy side of the force could be a great addition to the Puppy developers team.

Well, here are some examples for improvements I already made. They're very easy to implement because the ROX-Filer code is well-documented and in good shape.

- I replaced "Send To..." with "Open With...", that's something Barry does too.
- I removed the message you see when you run ROX-Filer as root - again, something Barry removes.
-A fix for the squashed log problem:
:
-I replaced "Set Run Action" with "Set Default Handler" to make it easier to understand:

- ... And I bumped the version number, of course:


The future prospects of a Puppy-maintained ROX-Filer are endless. I believe it's the best file manager around and definitely the best choice for the Puppy 6.x series (PCManFM and Thunar fans, please don't kill me) ... because it's the fastest and smallest file manager in the solar system. And hey, ROX-Filer is more than a just file manager, it's tradition!

So ... post your ROX-Filer patches and tweaks here, maybe we can make ROX-Filer even better together

[Dougal]

[Iguleder]

[oui]

Hm

I would prefer a small browser making both (have a look to BASIC linux baslin please: links does it, is fast, little and discret: no advertising and other terrible new thing that Google likes) so Puppy would always have an integrated browser but let free for users to install the prefered big brother they would prefer for her graphical satisfaction and amusement

it would be better to develop on the trio jwm+links+didiwiki making a real good basic file and internet browsing small graphical environment as well as a good basic writing system able to be used in both console and graphic windows (including cups) in standard, bold, italic and underlined writing (better than other writing systems for console!), directly available in a lot of languages (reduces the need or demand of translations in the basic version of Puppy) etc... Please output of didiwiki directly in /root/documents as open text! Perhaps it would be possible to renounce also to install Abi. a lot of user really prefer LibreOffice and the use of both as *.sfs is very simple and good! text processing don't often need really speed... how can write as fast in new computers!

the idealists interesting to produce puplets can decide after that to add or interchange this basic equipment and make her puplet different and more attractive in optical view and perhaps performance.

this would contribute to let the basic and main distro of puppy be as slim as possible and not to grow and grow and grow

second choice and eventuality would be a konqueror embedded but actualized (I know, there is no konqueror embedded in the new KDE4 and the part file browsing is now matter of an external program)

(KDE applications have often a better adaptation for more effective working with the ability to divide the only one screen to view and process 2 different point of a document and / or of 2 different documents to mix or compare)

a good thing would be a puppy with no texts and all in symbolic in the menus... only one version for all the planet!

bye

PS: see also here ideas concerning the not very useful use of CD to install and reinstall puppy: we are producing more unused plastic rests als we use really and it would be easy to avoid it!

[BarryK]

ROX-Filer has one annoying bug with GTK > 2.16. I reported it to the ROX bug-reporter recently.

I also reported this bug in my blog:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02053

One of the focus problems was fixed by the founder of ROX, Thomas Leonard:

http://repo.or.cz/w/rox-filer.git/commit/c2232d5075342347a8ff814ced5ce8b9e1cf64b9

The same principle could probably be applied to the remaining focus problem.

Here is where I posted my bug report:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=7023&atid=107023

...I have found in the past that it takes a very long time before anyone responds to bug reports. Perhaps Thomas Leonard needs to be contacted directly.

[Lobster]

[Flash]

For what it's worth, there's a feature I'd like to see included in all file managers. It seems to me that a file manager ought to be able to show a tree view of the subdirectories in a directory, without showing any files. Like Tree does, only with a better looking font.

[Puppyt]

I very much agree with you, Flash -
ROX needs at least a Directory Tree option - not primarily for, but at the very least incredibly helpful for users from different OS backgrounds. (Multi-panels would be nice too but perhaps overdoing it.) Indeed, within Puppy my main turn-off always has been ROX's "babied-up" icon-default display as it strikes me as patronizing to users new to Puppy and Linux as a whole. I do appreciate what ROX has hidden under its hood. However, for my part, without tree view ROX frequently has me barking up the wrong sub-directories and I am much happier using Thunar or Konqueror.

[Iguleder]

[Dougal]

[zigbert]

I am one of those who think even a small idea can lead to something good.
Sometimes we makes mistakes, but I find it better that you actually do something.... instead of stay away in fear of doing something wrong.


Sigmund

[Flash]

Dougal and Iguleder get into a spat and the forum loses two of its more competent developers. Why does this apparently have to happen?

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Perhaps this is an issue of "terminology"
To attempt to "take over maintaining" a mature project like Rox, which is a mainstay for like 1/3 of the distros around, would indeed, be an insane challenge..
However, to release and maintain a "Puppy customized" version, like Patriot did with JWM, (WITH Joes permission and co-operation) could be an asset to some users...
That said, remember: Small changes, even those that just seem "cosmetic" ie changing "Send to" to "Open with" can have reprocussions down the road.....

Edit: BTW...IMHO Rox is severely under-rated, and has unmatched functionality, (Much like MTpaint)
If you just work with it a bit....The right click menu eliminates the need for the "Tree`s" for me, and using cloned windows, batch renaming, and a host of other functions, make Rox the one for me...And for Puppy I hope....

Windows belong on the walls...And trees belong outside.....
Except those cute little Origami trees....

[Dougal]

[amigo]

Yeah, Thomas Leonard has spent a good portion of his life on ROX, so don't be too cavalier about what his intentions might be. If I understand correctly, most of that work was done while he was a student. Now, real-life issues have intervened -and his contributions to Open Source are now mostly in his important role at freedesktop.org.

I agree totally with dougal in that maintaining a patchset for Puppy's ROX is a much better idea -much less likely to step on anyone's toes. Even there, I already see a penchant to destroy a lot of what is good about rox by over-doing it with puppy-specific (read 'poorly-thought-out') hacks -using the latter word in its' worst sense. I'm pretty sure that T. Leonard would not want to turn over his 'baby' to someone with such tendencies...

Long ago I decided to hack around on the old GTK1 version of rox and I still use the result exclusively. Every once in a while I fix some warning or error or back-port a feature from later versions. I've even thought about backing up to a still older version (rox-1.0-ish) because back then it was using imlib for graphics instead of gtk-pixbuf. The idea would be to use it primarily as the pinboard a and not necessarily as the main file manager. Very lightweight -even compared to the 1.2.2 version my patches are based on.

Unfortunately, rox has never been widely-adopted by the main distros(in contrast to what was said earlier), so high-quality bug-fixes and fearure patches are hard to come by. Fortunately, there are still a couple of the main rox developers who are still active on the mailing list. One of the big problems with the whole project was that it got 'diluted' from trying to implement some really big changes in the way software is delivered - zero-install and others.

The tree-view idea is, of course, not new. Thomas always resisted that as it is not RISC-like. I would also have like to see it as an option, but my gtk skills are still not up to doing that myself.

In contrast to the way that puppy uses rox, I have concentrated on using it, and developing AppDirs for it, the way it was intended --as a super drag-n-drop environment. And, even though I have created many AppDirs which are like the original rox AppDirs which include their sources right in the app, it is quite a chore to create them and one could never keep up with active projects with this approach. Still, sophisticated AppDir wrappers for normally-packaged programs are easy to produce and keep the changes in the source code isolated from the AppDir wrapper..

The other concept that is key to rox is the idea that the user knows best where his files are and not his programs. What I mean is this: normal OS usage has you find and open a program, then use the programs' file-chooser to find and open the file that you want to work on. This means that the user must know well how to navigate that dreaded underlying directory structure. A proper rox desktop can easily isolate the casual user from that directory structure -the user already knows where his files are since they are in his $HOME -right where he created, downloaded or saved them. It's a snap for him to find the file he wants to work with and then drop the file on the application he needs for that file. Of course, the mime-types-to-actions associations are nice for many cases --I mean being able to just click the file to have it opened by the desired app. But there are many cases where you need to do different things with the file -like an html page that you might either view or edit. Same with image files. This is where an AppDir wrapper can provide a more intelligent alternative. As an example, I have an AppDir which is for creating and extracting archives. If you drop an archive on it, then it executes commands which de-compress the arcive. If you drop a file or a directory on it, then it executes commands which let you create an archive or compressed file. Doing this using mime-helpers would be more awkward, and avoids me having or needing to create arbitrary file-to-program associations.

I welcome seeing any patches which fix anything, or create other possibilities for rox -I might even get around to adapting them for my old version -it's still getting better after all these years!

One more thought and then I'll shut up (for the moment LOL). When you create patches, limit each patch to a single bug-fix or feature instead of rolling a bunch non-related changes together. Espcially if you start doing whie-sapce-only or coding-style changes. This means a little more work for you, but it will make your job much easier when adapting the patch for later versions or trying to merge changes from other patches. It also makes them more instructive for other who might use your patch to figure out how to create another patch for a similar fix or feature.