unity-design team mailing list archive

[Luke Benstead <kazade@xxxxxxxxx>]

Morning all,

I've just been thinking about Windicators and how they could be
useful. I vaguely remember someone posting an idea (before the
Windicator announcement) of being able to send files and data between
applications. I think Windicators could allow us to do this in a very
consistent way...

My idea is this, each application has two indicators called "Export
to..." and "Import from...". I'm not sure what the icons would look
like to convey those concepts, but that's the general idea. Basically,
these menus would adapt based on:

1. The types of file that the application handles
2. The applications which are open at the time (for "Import from..." only)

This is how it would work for example:

I'm working in Inkscape, I've knocked together an SVG image, but I
want to open it in the Gimp for bitmap editing. So I click the "Export
to.." Windicator and select "The Gimp". This then prompts me to save
the file, before firing up the Gimp with the file open.

Another example, I've been working in OOo Writer. I've written a long
letter and I decide to send it by email. I go to Evolution, and select
"Import from..." and "Writer" is on the list (as it is open). I click
it and it creates a new email with the text inserted from the
document.

Another, I've got an image open in Shotwell. I'd like to post it to
Twitter. I click "Export to..." -> Twitter. This uploads the image to
Twitpic (or similar) and opens up Gwibber with the image link
populated in the input box ready to send.

I could come up with these all day. But basically rather than using
the file manager to find files for opening, we could use Windicators
to pipe data between applications/the Internet.

Comments?

Luke.