Re: VFS or Nautilus view

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 12:26, Peter Lundqvist wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I'd like to be able to manage my digital camera from within nautilus.
> There's a great library/program for that (gphoto2) that works just fine
> (except it would be nice to have nautilus integration).
> 
> Before I start digging into this I'd like to know what the best aproach
> would be - a GNOME-VFS module or a Nautilus view? 
> When is it advisable to use a nautilus view vs. a VFS module?

Exactly what is it that you want to accomplish? 

In general, VFS modules are a good way of exposing things that are very
much like a filesystem to gnome applications. This would allow all gnome
applications to load and save files to the camera. 

Nautilus views are not really recommended for this sort of thing. They
can be seen more like running a different application in the nautilus
window, and can be used to allow you to have a different UI for viewing
a file or directory on the disk. You can't really launch a view for the
camera, a view is just a way of displaying a gnome-vfs URI.

One thing that is sort of limiting at the moment is integration between
vfs modules and Nautilus such that Nautilus can be made aware of the
existance of e.g. a just-plugged-in camera and present it in the UI. At
the moment you have to know about the vfs module and type the right URI
to see it.

Btw, if you do make a vfs backend for your camera, please handle it in a
way that all cameras work alike (at least all supported by gphoto). We
don't want a different uri-scheme per camera type.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an obese playboy stage actor She's a blind nymphomaniac single mother 
with her own daytime radio talk show. They fight crime!