Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] Behaviour of delete on MP3 players

[Jonathan Matthew <jonathan d14n org>]

On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 04:50:30PM +1000, Dave Martin wrote:
> Folks
>
> I raised a bug in bugzilla (584704) about Rhythmbox's behaviour when  
> deleting files from external devices. There seem to have been a few  
> similar bugs raised over a fairly long period but no definitive answer  
> has been found. I'd like to put out a possible solution to the list and  
> see what everyone thinks.
>
> ...
>
> Can I propose the following - For the main library, supply the usual two  
> options - move to trash and remove. For all external devices provide  
> only one option "remove from device". This would physically remove the  
> file from the device. I can see no use in having a recycle bin on an  
> external mp3 player. You could maybe make an argument about having one  
> on an external hard drive but those don't generally appear as a device  
> in rhythmbox anyway. There is no need for a remove option to remove from  
> the library as external devices aren't part of the main library anyway.

This sounds about right to me.  The generic 'Remove' menu item is a bit of a
problem like this - its effects range from removing an entry from a playlist
through removing a podcast subscription up to deleting a file, all with the
same name.  This is the main reason there's no shortcut key for it, too.

Trash seems pretty useless on media player devices.  I think it's safe to
assume that the files on the device are a subset of the library, so they can be
replaced by copying from the library rather than restoring from the trash
directory.