Page 1 of 1

NEMO quad panelling suggestion

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 6:18 am
by Ilya3L
Recently I have switched from the default Explorer to Q-Dir on my Windows desktop and I was surprised by the fact that just in a few days I have improved my productivity up to three times. Within its own window Q-Dir puts few frames (I prefer 4 frames) for the Explorer File Manager. And in each frame you may create as many tabs as you would like to. So you don’t have to manage multiple File Manager windows anymore. All the files and all the folders are within one single Window now. After you exit Q-Dir it saves its state, so you don’t have to start your work from scratch again.

However as far as I know on Linux there are only dual-panel file managers and Nemo in Linux Mint 14 does not support even dual-panel navigation yet. Only Dolphin does. What I suggest is to make Nemo being able to handle up to four frames within its single window. And within each frame – support tabs. This may be an optional feature, as dual paneling is an option in Dolphin. But if an option is selected all new windows will open as new tabs within Nemo's currently selected frame.

This will dramatically increase the productivity for those who actually work with bunch of files and folders.

Summary:
- One single window except multiple file manager windows - removes the necessarily to seek the desired FM-windows among opened ones
- Multiple tabs within multiple frames to make sure user have plenty of space to keep everything he or she wants always opened - no more need for closing FM-windows to free space in taskbar
- AutoSaving the state and bookmarking the state to make sure user won’t have to open all the folders again after system restart. Bookmarking the state – is optional
- Its own type of view in each tab – Simple List, List, Large Thumbnails, Small Thumbnails e.t.c.
- Integration into system and always opening new folders from desktop/start menu in recently used frame - to make sure there won’t be Nemo’s window duplicates - if user selected an option to always run Nemo in “Single Window Mode”
- Making things simple for those who actually work with multiple windows and keeping them as is for those who don’t. Ergonomics teaches us to minimize the amount of steps we need to make before reaching our goals, it also teaches us to keep everything important there where we can see it. I believe “quad-frame” (or “quad-panels”) file managers are all about this.

P.S. here’s my Q-Dir layout

Image

UPD: there is SpaceFM file manager which actually does multipanelling: http://ignorantguru.github.com/spacefm/