Re: importing directories

[Martijn Vermaat <mvermaat cs vu nl>]

> > I think the difficulty here stems from the fact that "import" is an
> > ambiguous term which can be used for two very distinct types of user
> > interactions:
> > 1) Copying files from removable media onto the local machine.
> > 2) Asking f-spot to catalog a directory that already exists on the local
> > machine.
> > 
> > These are both necessary features, but have very different effects.  My
> > suggestion would be to stop using the term "import" completely, and
> > instead create two dialogs:
> 
> I think this is a good idea.

I agree and I think Larry said as much that the plan was to
separate this functionality in the future.


> > The second would be called "Directories to monitor...".  This would be a
> > dialog that contains a user-configurable list of paths (~/Photos by
> > default) where f-spot should automatically look for new files and import
> > them into the user interface without requiring user intervention.  It
> > might also contain a list of "exclude" paths.  This is in the same
> > spirit as the Picasa interface, which I think is very good.  
> 
> When will f-spot search these directories? When the dialog is accepted,
> when f-spot starts or all the time?

I think it would be worth the trouble to automatically update
the database if anything is changed in the directory while f-spot
is running (using something like inotify). And changes would be
detected on startup too of course.

Whether or not the directories are scanned when the dialog is
accepted is something I'm not sure about. In any case, the UI
should reflect what f-spot will do.

It might also be a good idea to look at how other applications
handle things like this. For example, many music players do the
same thing: Rhythmbox does automatic updates using inotify or
something similar (or will do soon if I'm not mistaken).

Other features in music players can be useful to have a look at.
Quod Libet for example has some interesting features for mass
editing of tags and f-spot is at the moment discussing a number
of ways to edit meta data.


-- 
Martijn Vermaat

Student Computer Science        www.cs.vu.nl/~mvermaat/
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam         mvermaat cs vu nl