unity-design team mailing list archive

[Diego Moya <turingt@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 30 March 2010 17:56, Yann Lossouarn wrote:

>
>  For example when you want to reduce the filesize of photos before sending
> it to someone by email. I'd like to "copy" current photo, "paste" it to
> Gimp, crop it and reduce it, then copy/paste it to Thunderbird without
> having to navigate inside Nautilus.
>
> Doubleplus good if it integrates with a file versioning system that stores
the intermediate versions at each step.



> Really ? I think it would great having a standardized way to perform some
> sort of basic "copy/paste" action aimed at the entire file you're working
> on, in order to transfer the file from an application to another.


Actually, the proposed idea generalizes in a simple way to define
_arbitrary_ workflows for the desktop. This workflow button is a *great* way
to integrate in a user-friendly way the complex Workflow features as seen in
Content Management Systems. Think of the possibilities.

The available targets for the document could be defined by external
administrators (the distro creators, or an online repository) to which the
user can subscribe. Throwing the current document to a target could have
extra processes other than opening in a different application - such as
versioning, saving a copy to a shared folder, applying a visual filter to an
image...

The simple proposed use cases ("Open with" and "Upload to") are likely the
more useful. But if these buttons can be configured by the user to their
liking (one for the "local workflows" and the other for sharing), it can be
a powerful and innovative feature.