Re: F-spot network sync problems

["John Carr" <john carr unrouted co uk>]

2008/8/2 Olof Sjobergh <olofsj gmail com>:
> Hi!
>
> First of all, thanks for a really promising application!
>
> I've been trying to use the network sync with F-spot to sync my photos
> between my laptop and my desktop. I'm running Ubuntu Hardy with F-spot
> 0.4.3.1 and Conduit 0.3.12 from the Ubuntu ppa. I've managed to set it up
> and start syncing, but have noticed some problems.
>
> First, as reported in bug 517553, the filenames are not preserved, but
> change to something like "conduit6xu8UR". This I could live with, but I'd
> like to preserve the filenames if possible.
>
> Secondly, the dates of the files are not preserved. In F-spot, the photos
> are shown on the date I sync them, not on the day they're taken. This is
> more critical, as there is little point in syncing when this is wrong.
>
> Thirdly, the description seems to be lost in the sync.
>
> I had a look around the code, but couldn't figure out a way to fix the
> problems. F-spot seems to import the temporary file saved by Conduit, and
> preserves the filename of this tempfile. Looking in File.py, the to_tempfile
> method doesn't rename tempfiles to original names, and doesn't set the
> mtime. Could this be the cause of the first two problems above?
>
> As for the third problem, the F-spot dbus interface doesn't seem to support
> setting the description. It can be read by GetPhotoProperties, but there is
> no method to set it.
>
> Any pointers on how to solve these problems?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Olof Sjöbergh
>

Hi

Thanks for your interest in helping to fix our f-spot syncing. Your
observations look about right.

John is busy refactoring our file handling code to make use of GIO.
You should be able to patch the tempfile set the correct mtime, but
make sure you do so against trunk or its all in vain. (Its worth
checking with John if he has more GIO merges pending, im sure he will
reply shortly... after waking up). There should be code showing how
this works in File.py already.

Renaming the temp file is a little trickier, but if you are confident
you won't encounter name collisons you should be able to do this too.
Again, im certain an example is in there already.

For the third question, you have no choice but to cook up an f-spot
patch. The dbus addin maps useful f-spot database model functionality
to dbus for us to use to sync f-spot, and is available here:

http://svn.gnome.org/svn/f-spot/trunk/extensions/DBusService/

I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what is needed, and that Thomas
will help you.

Apologies for being vague, but you are already 90% of the way there
and im not sure what else I can add without sounding somewhat
insulting! If you have any specific questions let me know.

John