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"Modify" with contextual menu or mouse/keyboard shortcut

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Tags: user interface, contextual menu, shortcuts, file association user interface, contextual menu, shortcuts, file association user interface, contextual menu, shortcuts, file association
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Citan
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Hi all, here is a little suggestion from my personal experience.
There are some cases when I have a file, that I either want to "view" (aka "play" with multimedia files) or want to "modify". Three simple examples of that:
- read a html file (aka "view" it in browser) or "modify" it (with text editor, or dedicated tool).
- display an image (aka "view" it in gwenview or such) or modify it (with gimp, inkscape, etc.)
- listen to an audio file (aka "view" it in Amarok/vlc) or modify it with Audacity and such...
Etc... (same for text files with Okular/LibreOffice, same for video files...).

As it is, unless I missed something, when you don't use the same program to play and modify a file, one of the two has to be accessed only by opening the application then looking for the file, OR right-clicking on the file then "Open With" > Application name.

I believe it would be very user-friendly to have two distinct entries in contextual menu, one for "View" (EDIT: agreed with VaterGarp, probably more universal than "open" or "play"), and the other being "Modify".
As a bonus, being able to get the same behaviour (open "to modify") with shortcut would be equally satisfying. For example, I didn't get any action while middle-clicking a file with my mouse. Couldn't it be assigned to this?

I think this would have two main benefits for users.
- Spares many clicks on the long run.
- Guides user towards good practices (if don't want to modify a file, why take the risk of modify it by mistake, or locking it for nothing? Ex opening ODT file in Okular instead of LibreOffice).

Thanks in advance for your feedbacks on this suggestion (which I hope is new, although I did a quick check in Brainstorm). Cheers, Laurent

EDIT: Here's a try in making illustration of my idea. Sorry for the poor picture, I'm clueless with image editing. Couldn't display as an image, so here is the link (if a modo can modify to display it would be very nice.Thanks): http://files.petalslink.com/img/perso/KDE_Brainstorming_Modify-in-context-menu_schema.jpg.
EDIT (2nd April). Agreed with VaterGarp, subject updated consequently.
Note to modos: I wanted to update the title to make it clearer, cannot do it... Wanted to write "Modify A FILE with..."

Last edited by Citan on Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:05 am, edited 3 times in total.
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VaterGarp
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Nice idea.

„View“ might be a good description for what the user is going to do when clicking on the button, as „Open“ is connected to the current „Open and modify, depending on the application“ and „Play“ is associated with multimedia files.


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