[Rhythmbox-devel] Sources, Types and Errors

[Tom Parker <palfrey tevp net>]

Lots of posting from me today :-) This is what having some bored time over Xmas does to me...

I noted a while back that all import errors from all sources are visually dumped under the Library (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=369415). I've been fishing through the Rhythmbox sources in order to try and fix this, and realised it was a much bigger problem than I thought, and so I'd like to ask a few questions about why things are how they are, and whether they should be changed.

Specifically, the relationship between Sources, EntryTypes and errors. As I understand it, in general each Source has a single EntryType that it does stuff with. It looks like it's possible to have more than one EntryType per source, but I can't see that being used. Then, if we have an import error of some sort, that's a separate EntryType entirely.

This (to me) appears to have a couple of problems, but it mainly comes down to "All Sources get told about all items, irregardless of their EntryTypes". Given that each Source generally has it's own EntryType, and it's been associated with that Source, I can't see why things are done this way. Firstly, it's wasteful that every Source needs to do filtering. Secondly, this means that the Library doesn't do any filtering on errors, and just shoves anything with an error type into the Import Errors dialog irregardless of whether it came from a GenericPlayer source or wherever.

IMHO, entries should always only be reported back to the Source they came from, and errors should just be entries marked as bad rather than separate generic "one type fits all Sources" EntryType.

Anyone care to point out how I'm badly wrong?

Tom