[GEM Development] John's desktop (feature request)

[Liam Proven]

> Why should a filemanager have knowledge about the contents of a file?

It doesn't. All it has to do is attempt to dump ASCII to the screen, no 
more. It just needs to know about a few file extensions, no more.

> This is the same bad idea which MS had. And every user had his own
> idea which files should be displayed. This will increase the number of
> filetypes teh Desktop should know.

Well, yes, but file /types/ are very small! It's just for displaying 
text, after all.

> And how about writeing a fileviewer which can expanded with modules for
> new file types?

A good idea. For things more elaborate than ASCII text. Images are a 
popular target. I am very fond of a simple Windows program called 
IrfanView, which will very quickly display any image type I've ever 
heard of. It can do full-screen, resizing to fit, and some cropping and 
stretching, and not much more - it's /not/ an image editor, which is 
what I like about it. The only sign of bloat is that recent versions 
attempt to play sound and video files too, at which it is a lot less 
good and for which there are better alternatives.

But without that, an IrfanView alike would be very handy. I used to use 
a DOS program called QView for this, on Win95. Because my machine could 
only do a max resolution of 800x600 in 16 colours - not 16 bit, just 16 
shades, i.e. 4 bit colour - it was very handy to have a DOS app which 
could use any legitimate VGA display mode.

If Qview is still around, it might make a good basis for a simple GEM app?

-- 
Liam Proven
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