display status of hidden file visibility

Hello! I am loving Thunar as always. I have what I'm hoping is a small and in principal uncontroversial request. If it's of interest to others, I'm sure the exact details could be improved by some discussion.

Version information

EndeavourOS aur/thunar-devel 4.21.2-1

request

Would very much appreciate a visual indicator regarding the status of View > Show hidden files.

The Status Bar would be a great place.

rationale

Currently, in a directory containing 1x hidden file and 2x non-hidden files, the status bar reports:

3 files: 1.2 kB (1,237 bytes) | Free space: 40.1 GB

If hidden files is turned OFF I can infer that because only 2 of 3 existing files are visible.

But in a directory with lots of files you can't quickly eyeball the count, or even see them all at once. So there is no way to discern between files which are hidden and those which are absent.

simplest implementation

The simplest solution would be to append it to the current status text:

3 files: 1.2 kB (1,237 bytes) | Free space: 40.1 GB | Hidden files: [not] visible

  • would be nice if it was aligned to the opposite edge of the status bar (e.g. right-aligned if the other text is left aligned--- not sure if this is modifiable by language etc) because then you can very quickly look at a consistent spot to find the info rather than reading all the other info.

Personally I would be very happy with the above; it would be a great improvement over current.

fancier implementations

I am assuming that it wouldn't be plausible to use anything like an icon or special character to convey the information non-textually. But if it were possible there are likely nicer ways than what I'm suggesting.

Fancier but still textual would be to include counts of both kinds of files:

  • 3 files: 1.2 kB (1,237 bytes) | Free space: 40.1 GB | Hidden files: 1 [not] visible
  • 3 (2 + 1) files: 1.2 kB (1,237 bytes) | Free space: 40.1 GB | Hidden files: [not] visible
    • keeps the file counts together on the left, but the meaning is less obvious
    • A tooltip could be clarifying, e.g. 2 non-hidden files + 1 hidden files = 3 total files, but not sure if those are possible

related

I found recent issue #1680 (closed) "[Feature Request] "Add a toolbar button to quickly toggle visibility of hidden files". If that were implemented, perhaps the icon could change state depending on the current status. Either instead of, or (my preference) in addition to the status bar.

Thanks for taking the time to read this issue. If I provided too much/little or incorrect information please let me know so that I can fix it, and know for the future.