Re: [Utopia] gnome-vfs patch, take one

[David Zeuthen <david fubar dk>]

On Fri, 2004-05-14 at 16:50 +0200, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > Floppies, of course, need to be handled in a special way. IIRC there
> > were some discussion on how to access floppies through a gnome-vfs
> > method with what is essentially a userspace driver? With the benefit
> > that the user doesn't have to mount/unmount the disc? (and HAL can't
> > do it for him because of hardware limitations). But I can't remember
> > the specifics...
> 
> This is contrary to how the Gnome volume handling setup for nautilus was
> designed (as described in e.g. 
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2003-September/msg00122.html
> and
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2003-September/msg00294.html
> ) and how its currently implemented (see "Computer" in Gnome 2.6 and the
> implementation of GnomeVFSDevice and GnomeVFSVolume).
> 
> I don't see why this should suddenly change due to another backend being
> used?
> 

It would be a change, yes. I'm happy to change it though, but I'm not
sure how to do it in a good way.

My concern is just that there's simply no 1:1 relationship between the
device and the volumes that may be on media you insert into the device. 

It gets even more fun when you look a multi-LUN devices like a 6in1 card
reader. I have one those. The metal says "6in1 reader" and it exposes
four LUN's (compact, SD-MMC, memory stick and smart media - obviously
some marketing department thinks handling both CF type 1 and 2 should
count as two or something). 

Anyway, in this case what should computer:/// show? Two choices come to
mind: either four icons (icons resemble the respective media) or one
icon (icon looks like the device). What happens when I insert media with
multiple volumes? 

I also thought about a multi-level approach: 

 - 6in1 card reader
  - compact flash
  - smart media
  - sd-mmc
  - memory stick

with volumes popping in and out at the third level as appropriate.

Cheers,
David