Re: RFC for a better Network place.

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 02:00 +0100, Sebastien Estienne wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'd like feedback about speeding up network place browsing, and adding
> functionality to offer a more consistant and faster experience in
> network browsing.
> 
> first problem:
>  it's always slow to display the first entry when you launch network
> place, it starts empty and you have to wait 4/5 seconds before seeing
> anything
> even if you have just browsed the network 10 seconds ago, maybe it would
> needs some kind of caching to offer a better experience to users.

This is likely the delay from the initial smb browse lookup.

> I was thinking about implementing this functionality in a deamon. The
> deamon would periodically browse the network (could also browse for
> zeroconf services). And exports it's findings throught dbus.

network already browses for zeroconf services. Moving the network method
to the gnome-vfs daemon is a one line configuration change.

> In this schema "network place" would talk to the deamon using dbus,
> and the browsing would answer immediately.

Why use dbus and a new daemon when we already have a vfs daemon.

> second problem:
> the display feel unconsistant: you have workgroup, computers, shares,
> ssh share, nfs and so on. All at the same level without any logic in
> there placement.

There is some logic. All the local shares (link-local mDNS services,
dns-sd services in your domain, computers in your workgroup) are in the
toplevel network browser. There is also links to the windows network for
smb browsing, and separate links to toplevel dns-sd domains if any are
configured.

> Maybe we could sort them a bit.
> Maybe separating windows/samba browsing from other shares.
> 
> it seems to be 3 types of network ressources:
> - samba/windows : windows workstation, workgroups samba shares:
> - zeroconf detected services: webdav/ftp
> - user defined shares : dav/ftp/nfs/ssh

The location of user defined shares in network is a patch that Ubuntu
has applied that I have already rejected. The original model as
described in my first mail on this considers "connected servers"
essentially like local storage and thus appears in Computer. Since
Ubunty called its "Computer" menu "Disks" they decided to move the
connected servers to the Network location. 

> Maybe we should try thinking of a "better" way to organize them?
> Maybe a simple separation would be enought, or maybe we could separate
> "browsing" from "favorites" places. I don't have a perfect solution
> for the moment, but i'm sure it needs some works! :D

Its possible that it can be organized better, but i'm not sure how.

"Favourites" is something else, eventually we'll add the the bookmarks
from the gtk+ file selector to something like the places menu in
nautilus. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's an underprivileged Jewish senator in drag. She's a bloodthirsty tomboy 
cab driver on her way to prison for a murder she didn't commit. They fight 
crime!