Re: importing directories

["John Stoffel" <john stoffel org>]

>>>>> "David" == David Moore <dcm MIT EDU> writes:


David> I think the difficulty here stems from the fact that "import"
David> is an ambiguous term which can be used for two very distinct
David> types of user interactions:

David> 1) Copying files from removable media onto the local machine.

David> 2) Asking f-spot to catalog a directory that already exists on
David> the local machine.

David> These are both necessary features, but have very different
David> effects.  My suggestion would be to stop using the term
David> "import" completely, and instead create two dialogs:

David> The first would be called "Copy files from location..." or
David> something like that.  The dialog would let you specify a "from"
David> path (or url, etc.) and a "to" path.  The "to" path would
David> default to ~/Photos.  This option would simply copy the files
David> and do nothing else.  The dialog might pop up automatically
David> when removable media is inserted into the machine.

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

I like this idea alot, esp since I'm only Cataloging directories right
now, and honestly don't have any plans to have f-spot pull photos from
cameras quite yet, since I want full controll over the directory
structure it pulls them into.

Instead of 'Directories to monitor...' maybe it should be 'Catalog
Directory' to do a one time Cataloging, and another dialog called
'Setup Automatic Cataloging' for those directories you want checked
every X time parts.  Give the option to use 'inotify' to look for
changes.  Requires a recent 2.6 linux kernel though...

This makes alot of sense.  Esp since I already have a ~/Photos
directory, and I don't want f-spot mucking with it!  :]

John