Re: GNOME Usability Improvements - Fix the window manager!

[Ronald de Man <deman win tue nl>]

On Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 09:58:08AM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
> >>>>> "Matthias" == Matthias Warkus <mawarkus@t-online.de> writes:
> 
> >> It would also be nice if gmc windows (including the desktop) would
> >> automatically detect directory changes (so that icons appear
> >> whenever a new file is created, etc.).
> 
> Matthias> Yes, but that would need periodical rescans, which can
> Matthias> generate high I/O traffic. That in turn can mean high
> Matthias> network traffic, depending on the system setup.
> 
> Nevertheless it would be nice as an option.  The user might know his
> systems setup well enough to know whether this is worth it.
> 
> I've heard the occasional rumor of extending Linux so that polling
> wouldn't have to be done to detect this.  If that were done then this
> functionality would be very cheap for local directories.

Isn't it sufficient to periodically check the the date of the last
modification of the directory? Doing that once every second should
hardly cost anything (certainly not for local directories).

It does not and should not check continuously. And a bit of care should
be taken with redraws, so that not all icons are redrawn each time a
file is added.

Ronald