File Explorer

• UI component that is a unified file browser for a range of file systems.
• At the moment file:/, ftp:/, sftp:/ and ivo:/ (myspace) are supported
• plus a few internal protocols which are used to represent running tasks, results, and astroscope queries.
• There's a main file explorer window, plus an embedded file-viewer which is used within the TaskRunner and AstroScope windows to display processes and results.
• Selecting one or more files updates the DesktopActivities list with actions possible on these files.
• the same activites are also available from a drop-down menu, and a right-click-popup.
• Files can be copied between locations via drag-and-drop - in this way, results can be saved out of astroscope by dragging them into a file explorer.

Todo

• Implement the full range of DesktopActivities over files - move, rename, compress, cut/copy/paste, show properties.
• Display progress information when performing tasks (e.g copy, delete) - so user can see something is happening, and has a chance to cancel it.
• VOSpace filesystem support
• Integrate drag-and-drop with the host Desktop - so that files can be uploaded by, eg, dragging them from Windows Explorer into a fileexplorer window, and vis-versa.
• Plastic filesystem - browse connected plastic applications, each plastic message type they accept is presented as a 'drop folder' into which files can be dropped.
• Support for other e-science filesystems? there's code available for GridFTP and SRB

-- NoelWinstanley - 28 Jun 2007