Common file/print manager

[cloverm]

I think that one thing the Linux-desktop development should concentrate on is a common file and print manager for all programs. I truely hate it that I'm presented with a different file manager for opening or printing a file from Gimp, OpenOffice, Konqueror, etc. For somebody just starting to learn Linux this is probably even more confusing.

[pbharris]

ah - you mean have all apps have the same front end ?

[cloverm]

[quote author=pbharris link=board=2;threadid=8535;start=#msg77191 date=1074627309]
ah - you mean have all apps have the same front end ?

[/quote]

Yes! Wouldn't that be nice?

[Stuart]

Good luck getting that to happen :

[cloverm]

[quote author=philangatron link=board=2;threadid=8535;start=#msg77194 date=1074628194]
Good luck getting that to happen :
[/quote]

I know, but I think it is essential to make Linux a viable desktop OS.

[pbharris]

[quote author=cloverm link=board=2;threadid=8535;start=0#msg77193 date=1074627690]

Yes! Wouldn't that be nice?
[/quote]

i have never thought about it... but now that you mention it it would be nice. my wife and mom use linux and i get quite sick of fielding questions on how to open this and print that....

[Stuart]

[quote author=cloverm link=board=2;threadid=8535;start=0#msg77195 date=1074630023]
[quote author=philangatron link=board=2;threadid=8535;start=#msg77194 date=1074628194]
Good luck getting that to happen :
[/quote]

I know, but I think it is essential to make Linux a viable desktop OS.

[/quote]
Yea, I'm not saying it's a bad idea. In fact, it would be wonderful to happen.. But it's not likely to.
GNOME/GTK, KDE/QT, and other projects would have to get together and decide to rework their file/print management systems..
Plus theres older versions of stuff that is still floating around (xmms doesn't use gtk+-2 yet), so that would have to be resolved too. Sure, if someone were to put the idea on freedesktop.org and get people to go along with it for future versions of stuff, it would be great.

[cloverm]

I see a simple solution. Every program should detect if it is running in a KDE or Gnome or whatever environment. If it is running in KDE, it would invoke the KDE file manager, if it is running in Gnome it would invoke the Gnome file manager. I don't think that would be too hard to do.

[Schotty]

IIRC, GNOME has been working on this for some time. Along with the new file browsing interface for apps.

[Compunuts]

Isn't it guys at LSB ( Linux Standards Base ) doing exactly the same thing?

But last I heard, they aren't getting too far. Especially, some Linux big guys want THEIR way of doing rather than compromising and following standards.

Plus, not many people want to donate stuff to standards organization which they don't get that much press-releases. :