Re: connections:/// vfs

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Tue, 2004-08-10 at 19:22, Tiago Cogumbreiro wrote:
> Hello there list,
> 
> I am the main developer of a new project called GNOME PPX
> (http://s1x.homelinux.net/projects/gnome-ppx). It's a framework to
> develop pppd dialers, we currently have a PPPoE, a PPPoA and a PPTP
> dialers. It's a very young project but there are already some issues
> about how it could be better integrated with the GNOME DE. I was
> wondering if you guys think it is a good idea for me to write a new
> gnome-vfs protocol uri, namely connections:///

Gnome-vfs is not generally used for "showing lists of stuff", so I don't
think this is a good idea. Gnome-vfs is for loading/saving users files,
and you wouldn't be saving your documents in connections:///, nor would
you go there to look for it. In fact, if it ever showed up in your file
selector it would be pretty confusing.

Historically we've been using vfs for some forms of listing (fonts://,
applications://), and other people have followed this (themes://, etc).
However, this is a really bad idea. Showing such lists in nautilus is a
horrible interface because nautilus just thinks they are normal files so
you have to do strange hacks to make it do something you want, and we
don't have any way to access these lists except typing magic
non-translatable strings in the location bar. So, we are very much
trying to move away from this.

> This would be the uri for all connection types, PPP, PPPoE, PPPoA and
> even Ethernet connections. Currently it would work as preferences
> caplets, each icon would run a program.
> 
> The initial motivation is that if this project continues to support more
> connection types then the applications menu will be populated with lots
> of entries, this way we could unify it in a single place.

It should be unified by unifying the capplets into one capplet, not by
pretending that PPP connections are a collection of files.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
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