Re: automatically copying the photos over

["Michael Wayne Goodman" <goodman m w gmail com>]

Hi Patrick,
I recently submitted a patch that allows one to customize the
directory structure in which the photos will be copied.  With any luck
it will be included in the next release, but that is up to the
decision of the maintainers.
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=329040)

As far as whether F-Spot imports or not, that is a different story.
It currently copies the photos as you are previewing photos to import,
and before you click the "import" button.  This is definitely a bad
way to do it and should be fixed soon (I hope).  Also, at one point
F-Spot would copy the photos whether you checked the "Copy file to the
Photos folder" checkbox or not.  I'm not sure if this is still the
case, but if it is then it is also something that should be fixed
right away.  Please check with the latest version (0.3.4) to see if it
fixes your particular problem.

If your problem still exists in the latest code from svn, then by all
means submit a patch if you're willing to write one.  Having one too
many patches for a bug is always better than one too few.

Thanks for your input!

On 3/5/07, Patrick Wagstrom <patrick wagstrom net> wrote:
> I'm just wondering, what's the logic behind having F-spot always copy
> the photos over when importing photos?  It seems like there are a few
> problems with this functionality, or at the very least, it's current
> implementation that cause issues in my use and a few other folks in my LUG.
>
> First, with it on by default, it frequently makes imports take a lot
> longer, especially if the photos are already on a safe and stable place
> on your disk.
>
> Secondly, if you're like me, and don't pay attention when it's on, you
> have to click cancel, in which case it leaves all the previously copied
> files already sitting in your other location, which you need to go clean
> up manually and try the import again.
>
> Thirdly, I've had problems with being stupid like this and having f-spot
> import duplicates, which are rather hard to find most of the time.
>
> So the way I see it there are a few possible solutions to this issue:
>
> 1. Mandate copying of photos over
> 2. Retrain all users to like copying their photos over
> 3. Make the default not to copy photos over
> 4. Have F-spot remember whether or not you told it to copy photos over
>
> Option 1 isn't that good because lot of people manage their photos with
> a different directory structure.  Option 2 isn't possible because there
> will always be dumb users like myself.  Option 3 is a possibility, but
> I'd imagine that some users like the feature.  Option 4 is a
> possibility, but raises some other issues regarding consistency -- for
> example, do we set it per filesystem, device, path?
>
> In my view, it makes the most sense to implement option 4 by having
> F-Spot just store a g-conf key and set the value on the import dialog
> when the dialog is created.
>
> Before I go and implement this, is there any reason why implementing
> option 4 somehow goes against the GNOME and F-Spot UI guidelines.  We're
> not talking about a new UI element, just remembering the state of the
> form when reloaded.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> --Patrick
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--
-Michael Wayne Goodman