[Techtalk] recommendations for distros wanted

[Miriam English]

I just re-read my original question and realised my description of 
DirIcon is awfully ambiguous.

A DirIcon is an ordinary picture file (jpg/png/svg/bmp/gif/xpm/ppm/...) 
with the special name ".DirIcon". Its picture replaces the default icon 
for the particular folder it is in.



Miriam English wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I have used Puppy Linux for about a decade and a half and have been 
> mostly happy with it, however Rox, its preferred file manager, has not 
> been updated for several years and the most recent version has a very 
> inconvenient bug, so I've been looking at perhaps moving to another 
> distro. (I doubt my programming abilities are sufficient to fix it.)
>
> In using Puppy I've customised it to be even more easy to use than the 
> standard version is. I've relied heavily upon two very useful features 
> of Rox: DirIcons and AppDirs.
>
> A DirIcon consists of an ordinary image file inside a directory with 
> the special name ".DirIcon". The leading dot makes it hidden when 
> viewing the directory contents, but when the folder is viewed from 
> outside, then the default folder icon is replaced by whatever image 
> the .DirIcon is. This makes it very easy to set up many different 
> directories in complex hierarchies, yet let my eye jump quickly to the 
> most commonly used ones. Also, the .DirIcon can be a link, so I can 
> set up my folders so that I can have what are in effect several 
> "default" folder icons by making .DirIcons for those folders as 
> absolute links to various folder icons.
>
> AppDirs are even more useful. They let a folder act like an 
> executable, so it can be clicked to run a program or a file can be 
> dropped on the AppDir to run the program with the dropped file as a 
> parameter. The AppDir contains a few special files:
>
> - AppRun - an executable (usually a bash script) that gets executed 
> when the folder is clicked.
>
> - AppInfo.xml - a simple xml file that gives popup information when 
> the mouse hovers over the AppDir and also lets the creator make a 
> popup menu for when the AppDir is right-clicked, letting any one of 
> various programs in the AppDir be selected, or any of various 
> parameters be selected for the program.
>
> - .DirIcon - as mentioned earlier an image that depicts the program 
> that the AppDir executes.
>
> The AppDir can contain an executable and all necessary dependencies so 
> that it can run in a nearly system-independent way. It also lets me 
> run scripts from icons on the desktop. I've created a series of such 
> icons that act like an editor, letting me do cool things anywhere text 
> entry happens -- in the terminal,  in a web browser's forum text 
> entry, a file renaming dialogue box, any ordinary text editor, and so 
> on. This enables easy checking of word-count, putting HTML tags around 
> selected text, inserting the current date and time in any of several 
> formats, running sed on text in a window to search/replace text using 
> regex, wrap text by getting rid of carriage returns inside paragraphs, 
> and much, much more.
>
> So you can see why I want a distro and/or window manager or file 
> manager that can use DirIcons and AppDirs. Does anybody know of any?
>
> Cheers,
>
>     - Miriam
>

-- 
The only person that you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.
  -- Ain Eineziz