KonqListView NG

[Rolf Magnus]

Hi,

I'm planning to write a new version of the konqueror list view, and I'd like 
to hear (or rather read) what you people think about it, especially about the 
questions I added. And I'd like to know whether you think it'd be better to 
try changing it, or rather rewrite it.
Actually, I already started rewriting it - but hey, I can still change my 
mind ;-)

Here are the thought I have written down so far:

The new list view should provide the same features as the existing one and 
make the three known flavours (detailed, tree and text view) avaiable. I'd 
like to merge the meta info stuff into the base class so that all three of 
them support it automagically.
Additional planned/considered features are:

- Better support for MetaInfo and be prepared for extended attributes and the
  like.

  We'll not have a fixed list of columns anymore, but rather one that depends
  on the file type. The user should be able to choose the columns he wants,
  probably using a similar way as The Evil OS(tm) does, by providing a popup
  menu with the available items when the user right clicks on a column
  header.
  (How will that choice be stored? Per directory, or per mimetype? How should
   a directory with files of multiple mimetypes be handled? I'd say it could
   be similar to the way the info list view handles it. What about  variable
   items that aren't only dependant on the mimetype, but even on the specifc
   file - KFileMetaInfo has those, and some file formats might not even have
   fixed ones?)

- Inline editing of all columns for which it makes sense.

  For the editing, an edit widget that fits the data type of the column is
  used, and validators would be supported. I alread have written a
  KVariantWidget, but it's unfinished and still resides on my hard drive only.
  (When will data be written, since there is no ok button like in the
  dialog? Writing after every change could become expensive in some cases -
  maybe using a timer or by providing some way to "apply" the changes)

- A summary row (total size, average bitrate, total playtime of all mp3s in
  the directory, ... you name it). KFileMetaInfo already provides a way to
  find out whether it makes sense for an item to sum it up for all files or
  it's rather better to provide an average (for the play time of an mp3,
  summing up is more interesting, while for a bitrate, it makes no sense at
  all). I'd like to finally use that feature somewhere ;-)

- A background image for the view that reflects directory contents?
  Like a large sound icon if the directory contains mostly audio files.

- Maybe extending the vertical size of the selected file's (or even the one
  that the mouse is hovered on?) row to show more information.
  (Or would that be considered too disturbing?)

- A tool tip with preview image, like in the iconview? Or maybe do that
  using the mentioned "extended size"?

So, any comments? Rants? Flames?