On adding an extension point to GIO for setting file info attributes

[Adam Plumb <adamplumb gmail com>]

hi all, I hope this is the correct place to discuss GIO development.

I'd like to create a GIO module that tracks GFiles being loaded and is able to set file attributes.  Specifically, the module would track files in working copies (for svn, git, bzr, etc), lookup their vcs status (normal, modified, added, etc) and apply attributes that could be used by gio file managers (and their extensions) to display emblems.

It seems to me that this will require a new extension point in GFileInfo or GLocalFileInfo (though I'm not sure) where it would ask modules for attributes when a new GFile is instantiated or changed.

I'm willing to do the legwork to get this working, but I wanted to get some feedback from the glib/gio devs about how best to do this and whether they would be willing to add such an extension point.  One gotcha is that it would need to be non-blocking/asynchronous so that the module could do a lookup (which may take some time) and then supply file attribute information when it is ready.

Thanks,
Adam