Re: Integration of new types of volumes

[Yaron Tausky <decaycell gmail com>]

On Tue, 2005-05-17 at 19:13 +0400, Andrei Yurkevich wrote:
> Yaron Tausky wrote:
> 
> > I've been hacking a bit with the SynCE[1] code -- especially the GNOME
> > VFS integration -- and I thought I'd better ask here on the matter of
> > further desktop integration. I want to reach the point where the device
> > is presented on the desktop and the computer:/// URI in Nautilus upon
> > mounting.
> 
> There is alreasy a gnome-vfs module that would let you browse your PDAs 
> filesystem (synce:///) - all that needs to be done is just some API that 
> would let this and other gnome-vfs modules to show their icons in the 
> Computer folder. I don't know, however, if any such API exists in 
> gnome-vfs/nautilus or whether the desktop developers are interested in it.

Such API does exist in GNOME VFS -- in fact, there is an implementation
in the synce-gnomevfs package, it's just not getting installed with the
rest of the package. The reason is that it's very hackish -- you have to
run a certain programme on connection and disconnection to take care of
that. I think this is something that should be done by the DE, with the
help of device-specific code.

> As for g-v-m: I don't think that it is supposed to take care of the 
> PDA's filesystem or whatever other device that is not a storage device. 
> My guess that a PDAs device representation on the desktop is something 
> like a remote network share or ftp connection or something like that. So 
> I guess nothing should be done except for showing the PDA in the 
> 'Computer' folder.

A PDA is storage, in the same sense that an iPod is a storage device
(work is being done to add iPod support to g-v-m). They both have
user-accessible filesystems, and when a user plugs the device in s/he
probably want to access those filesystems. Placing an icon in Nautilus
and on the desktop is the best way to access them.
I think g-v-m should provide an API for devices, that will let them add
icons, etc. in all relevant places throughout the desktop in a
consistent way.
-- 
Yaron Tausky <decaycell gmail com>