For those who have read my "Magnetic (files And) Folders" idea, someone commented that it's a lot like what Mac OSX smart folders (and to a lesser extent, Vista's search folders) uses.
So this idea is a more simplified version of that. The problem is downloading files and moving them around the filesystem (your folders). The main thing I would like to do is make it so that when a certain file gets downloaded, it "reads" the extension/metatype and copies it to the appropriate folder. For example when downloading a Video, it would end up in the folder "/home/tux/Video". But I realized you can also use this for your "local" file management. The way it could work is that:
- there is a hidden or visible folder "Automatik" (the name I made up) or ".Automatic" in your home folder where you can download or drag things to
- it could also be useful to have a drop zone for files or links, especially if you have a hidden folder .Automatik
- the folder gets monitored constantly for changes. For example beagled could probably do this
- when a change is detected (for example, you finish downloading videoTrigun01.avi ), it checks the file and does something with it according to certain criteria. The most simple thing would be to copy/move it to the /home/tux/Video folder, but a more advanced feature could also be parsing the file name and when it contains the string "Trigun", it copies/moves that file to /home/tux/Video/Trigun
- Of course certain files have to be excluded, e.g. .part files (partial downloads). Then again, "Automatik" would only do something with extensions/metatypes where there are rules for
- some more advanced stuff: say you have a folder with thumbnails and real-size pictures for your website. By scanning the filesize Automatik could create seperate folders for the thumbs and the actual pictures or issue a command to do other picture-stuff with them.
2. The paperklip (no, it's not "clippy" !
)Not sure if this already exists somewhere, but basically the paperklip idea is that you have an icon on your desktop that "holds" a stack of several files, such as video thumbnails or picture thumbnails. When clicking/hovering on it, either the file you have the mouse pointer over gets magnified and you can scroll through it that way with mouse or arrow keys (sort of like the Max OSX animated taskbar), or a 3D "ellipse" pops out, such as the 3D Window switcher in Beryl, and you can also navigate that with mouse or keyboard keys. Clicking or double-clicking it might also launch a program that automatically loads all the files in it, such as Digikam or Picasa for pictures.
3. Combining the two
Whenever Automatik sees a change for a filetype/mimetype that corresponds to the paperklip, you see an animation of the file(s) "flying" to their destination, as if the paperclip was magnetic (here I go again with magnetism...
). This way even when Automatik moves files in the background, this can be spotted.Genius? Madness? Waste of time? You decide!
[moved from Everything Linux by spinynorman]
