Re: special folders (was Call for a Gnome Media Center)
Hi, Note that the new migration assistant available in Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Herd 4 migrate 'My Music' to ~/Music, etc. I do not like the idea of virtual folder. A nice feature in iTunes is the nice renaming of files. I wonder if we should implement an extended special forlder system that automatically tag/translate/… folder given their name. This is already done for ~ and maybe ~/Desktop. However, translation is done in Bookmarks, not in file view. We need to share code to handle thos special folder. Special folder exists (see ~ and ~/Desktop), we just need to * Handle generically translation on view (keeping the real name in capitalized english) * Handle an extensible list of special desktop (Projects, Sites, Sources, …) * Target special desktop by mime-type. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
special folders (was Call for a Gnome Media Center)
What about this... (using nautilus) ~/Music is a virtual folder (saved search) of "mimetype:audio", inside you don't see files or folders, you see albums, click album to see available songs, once you select some, an "add to playlist" button appear on top, the button has drop down menu shows you applications that can handle this type of files Now imagine the same thing to (office) documents, photos, videos... and files-appeared-on-hd-this-week! I think this could be done coding nautilus plugin (pygtk) that talks to tracker or beagle through dbus On side note, Lucas Rocha blogged about "Selection bits" [1] KDE user asked for it [2] six days later a KDE developer done it [3] 1 http://blogs.gnome.org/view/lucasr/2007/01/15/0 2 http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=52738 3 http://www.ereslibre.es/screenshot4.png ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Ross Burton burtonini.com> writes: > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:56 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > As for a shared database this might be a good idea, but I will leave > > that up to application writers to decide, for me a good start would be > > that all Music applications for instance tried hard to get people to > > save their Music under $HOME/Music for instance. That way when you > > start > > another Music application or Elisa you don't need to specify which > > directory to look for Music inn. Similar conventions would be good for > > pictures and movies and album/dvd cover art. > > Just last week I got a bug report and a patch for this in Sound Juicer. > It hard-codes the default location to save files as ~/Music/. Now, my > question is this: do I commit this, or do we need a more powerful system > that handles i18n? I'm sure a Persian GNOME user would not like their > music in ~/Music/. One quick solution is to translate the string > "Music"... is that enough? > > Ross Hi all, I'm a long time lurker and would like to propose an idea to solve this issue acting at the file_choser level and using a new .desktop file key. Applications should have a X-GNOME-MetaType[*] line in their .desktop file. The list of possible values is well defined: music, image, document, video, archive, project. For example: Rhythmbox -> X-GNOME-MetaType=music OO.o -> X-GNOME-MetaType=document The GIMP -> X-GNOME-MetaType=image EOG -> X-GNOME-MetaType=image FileRoller -> X-GNOME-MetaType=archive Anjuta -> X-GNOME-MetaType=project Then all the magic happens within the file chooser (not the application!); when called, it chooses which folder to show you following this order of preference: 1. the folder which was last used for this operation (opening/saving) in the current application session; 2. the folder intended for this kind of files, if any (e.g. ~/Music/); 3. $HOME Point 2 is the one requiring more discussion. Let's suppose we're the GIMP and have X-GNOME-MetaType=image; then the *file_chooser* should try to find out which is the folder where the user puts his images. At first it looks inside ~/.local/default-dirs/ and sees if it can find a symbolic link named "images". For example: ~/.local/default-dirs/images -> ~/Images. If it can't find it, then it asks the user: |__X_| || | It is the first time you save an image. Where do you | | want to put this kind of files, by default? | | ___ | |o | ~/Images | | | '~~~' | |o Nowhere in particular _ | | | X Close | | | '~' | '' The proposed "~/Images" should really be its localized equivalent. The choice "Nowhere in particular" means $HOME. Let's suppose the user changes the proposed default to "~/Graphics"; then a symbolic link is created: ~/.gtk-dirs/images -> ~/Graphics. All this could happen without the app even knowing and would only require changes is .desktop files and in the file chooser. If an application needs more control, a new gobject property called metatype could be added to the file_chooser (containing a value in GTK_METATYPE_MUSIC, GTK_METATYPE_IMAGE, GTK_METATYPE_DOCUMENT, GTK_METATYPE_VIDEO, GTK_METATYPE_ARCHIVE, GTK_METATYPE_PROJECT etc.). This setting would prevail on the one in the .desktop file. PROs: * Not intrusive and easy to implement. * All changes are done at the gtk level (inside the file_chooser); applications remain untouched. * Flexible, since everybody can give the name he wants to his folders. * Doesn't use gconf and could also be proposed to KDE people. * Everything just works whether the user does a "mv ~/Graphics ~/MyPhotos", since the link in .local/default-dirs becomes dangling and the file_chooser shows again its question about the Images dir. (checking for renames through inotify would also be good, of course...) * Command line tools could reach those folders through .local/default-dirs links. * Nautilus could trivially assign an automatic emblem to those special folders. Just my 2 cents. Hi again, robepisc [*] what I call "metatype", here, is not the MIME type, since we don't care if a document is a .rtf, a .doc or a .odf file; what we care is it is a "Document". Note however that the metatype could probably be inferred from the MimeType. So X-GNOME-MetaType could not even be necessary. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 13:07 +0100, Mattias Eriksson wrote: > I posted a suggestion on gnome devel earlier how to handle special > folders: > http://www.nabble.com/Special-folders-in-gnome-p2357664.html (This was > the first mirror I found using google) > as for what that page says about gnome-screensaver maintainer refusing to make it configurable, it is rather that the slideshow screensaver can be run with an argument to specify the directory to get the photos from, so is is already configurable, not in the way I guess you want. -- Rodrigo Moya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
I posted a suggestion on gnome devel earlier how to handle special folders: http://www.nabble.com/Special-folders-in-gnome-p2357664.html (This was the first mirror I found using google) It was not implemented since nobody (including me) had any time to do it... I however still think this is the way it should be done... But read the thread! //Snaggen ons 2007-02-14 klockan 10:22 + skrev Ross Burton: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:56 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > As for a shared database this might be a good idea, but I will leave > > that up to application writers to decide, for me a good start would be > > that all Music applications for instance tried hard to get people to > > save their Music under $HOME/Music for instance. That way when you > > start > > another Music application or Elisa you don't need to specify which > > directory to look for Music inn. Similar conventions would be good for > > pictures and movies and album/dvd cover art. > > Just last week I got a bug report and a patch for this in Sound Juicer. > It hard-codes the default location to save files as ~/Music/. Now, my > question is this: do I commit this, or do we need a more powerful system > that handles i18n? I'm sure a Persian GNOME user would not like their > music in ~/Music/. One quick solution is to translate the string > "Music"... is that enough? > > Ross > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 18:22 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > People have mentioned Tracker on this mailing list and we do plan on > investigating using that as it would be a good solution to our problem. great > We are though a little worried about performance of such a solution, not > because we know of any concrete performance hitches with Tracker, but > just a general worry that a generic all directory encompassing solution > might not give performance at a level acceptable to our users. optimal performance will depend on how your app deals with the data. if your app needs to download into memory all files + metadata in one go at startup into RAM (which is a bad design IMO) then yes performance might not be as good. However if you code your app to page results in chunks (IE show me the first 50 music files) then performance would become a non-issue as further chunks can be added asynchronously on a need to know basis. > From > experience I know that music player developers for instance are very > sensitive to how fast they are able to display items in your 10 000 song > collection and get the metadata from those songs onto the screen. There are workarounds here that can eliminate the bottlenecks (if what I said above is not desirable). One thing we are considering is having a flattened sqlite db for just music which tracker would maintain and keep up to date. This db can be read in-process by Rhythmbox and other apps and would eliminate the dbus scalability problems with transferring large data over the bus as well (in effect it would become a common music database). Apps would only need to listen to tracker to receive updates/additions/deletions (as only tracker should update the db) Also its only worth storing metadata here thats needed for display at startup (which in the case of a music player is probabaly six fields max) - the rest of the metadata can be gotten from tracker when needed (like in a properties dialog or when playing a track) as this is not a performance bottleneck. jamie. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: prioritization [was Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center]
On 2/14/07, Christian F.K. Schaller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > the Elisa hackers are not sitting on their hands Of course. I didn't mean to belittle them, or the mugshot team, or any of the various other teams who are working on furthering GNOME while avoiding desktop-devel. I had written a much longer response, but if I continue this thread, I'll be again distracting from discussion of goals and vision, which would defeat the whole point. So I'm going to drop it now and get back to Con Law... Luis ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On 2/14/07, Ross Burton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:26 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > > I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My > > Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory > > the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. > > $ ls -d */ > Archives/ Documents/ Maildir/ Pictures/ public_html/ Templates/ > bin/ Local/ Mess/ Programming/ Music/WebSites/ > > I must be ridiculous. > > You are marking youself as a hard-core terminal geek by saying that > "music" is beautiful but "Music" is ugly. Most "normal" (read: > non-geeks) people capitalise these directories. I'm a geek but I like > them to be uppercase as they are proper nouns, effectively. There's no other reason other than that I find the capitalization an eyesore and always am surprised why so many users practice it. I even have an idea that it's inherited from the Windows way of doing things. I do the capitalisation thing when giving names to certain files, like audio/video names, people names, ... just a stylistic choice. The idea is I won't like it if someone tries and hardcode a path into which he wants me to put all my media in. Choice's good, often... ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: prioritization [was Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center]
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 12:59 -0500, Luis Villa wrote: > While we're busy having that discussion, and not discussing media > centers, Apple and Microsoft are busy developing Apple TV and Xbox and > kicking our asses in yet another area. > I think you are being overly negative here Luis. A discussion about media-centers in the sense of features and so on probably belong on the media center mailing list, like elisa-devel. What a list like desktop-devel is for IMHO is figuring out cross application/system integration points. Any maybe discussing these directories and search engines is a tad overly narcissistic or something, but it is relevant for the list more than say a discussion about wether Elisa's method for displaying your audio files on screen is better/worse than Apple TV, which I feel is a very implementation specific type of topic and thus belong on elisa-devel/mythtv-devel/freevo-devel/whatever-you-media-center-devel lists. And I assure you Luis, while we are discussing practical things here like directory structures and whether Rhythmbox and Totem should support upnp AV in addition to DAAP or whatever practical interoperability issue we can come up with, the Elisa hackers are not sitting on their hands waiting for the outcome, they are instead hacking like crazy trying to improve usability and reach feature parity with whats out there already. So while Microsoft and Apple might have a head start we are not just sitting around waiting for our collective arses to be kicked ;) Christian ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
prioritization [was Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center]
On 2/14/07, Murray Cumming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:27 -0500, Luis Villa wrote: > > [I'll note that the direction the rest of this thread has gone is > > indicative of why I'm very, very pessimistic about the long-term > > health of GNOME right now. Take this as a mild attempt to get back on > > track by talking about users and user experience instead of > > capitalization of directories which users should never see anyway, and > > which has previously been discussed repeatedly, endlessly and without > > resolution.] > > It's not just about Capitalization. It's about localization. Getting it > wrong will upset significant amounts of people for a long time. > > The answer is not to ignore the difficult decision. It needs to be > presented as a choice between various pros and cons, with a decision > being made for one choice or the other, clearly stating that we believe > one set of disadvantages is not as bad as another. Then moving on. > > Dealing with complex issues properly doesn't mean that we are incapable > of deciding. Quick decisions often lead to pain and misunderstanding. We > are somewhere in the middle. The discussion is of course important, which is why we've had it repeatedly, and it is hard, which is why we've had it repeatedly and not solved it. But we've devoted something like thirty emails in this thread alone to it, with no signs of it slowing, plus (IIRC) something like seventy emails the last time, and who knows how many prior to that. And we've devoted less than ten emails to the topic that started the thread- an idea which would massively and substantively improve our user experience and broaden our impact, and *which Christian has correctly pointed out will have failed if people ever see a file heirarchy*. So... fine. I'll grant that it is important. Go ahead, discuss it. My problem is in continuing to discuss it 5-10 times as much as we're discussing actually moving us forward, helping our users, and striking at our competitors. While we're busy having that discussion, and not discussing media centers, Apple and Microsoft are busy developing Apple TV and Xbox and kicking our asses in yet another area. Luis P.S. To put it another way, I recall from our last discussion of this that Apple hasn't solved it either. And I agree that it sucks. And in the meantime, while it has sucked, they've settled on ~/Music, moved on, worked on iTunes, and iTunes has taken over the world. The localization (or lack thereof) of ~/Music has not hurt them, because they are writing awesome software. This discussion is completely failing to help us write awesome software. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:27 -0500, Luis Villa wrote: > [I'll note that the direction the rest of this thread has gone is > indicative of why I'm very, very pessimistic about the long-term > health of GNOME right now. Take this as a mild attempt to get back on > track by talking about users and user experience instead of > capitalization of directories which users should never see anyway, and > which has previously been discussed repeatedly, endlessly and without > resolution.] It's not just about Capitalization. It's about localization. Getting it wrong will upset significant amounts of people for a long time. The answer is not to ignore the difficult decision. It needs to be presented as a choice between various pros and cons, with a decision being made for one choice or the other, clearly stating that we believe one set of disadvantages is not as bad as another. Then moving on. Dealing with complex issues properly doesn't mean that we are incapable of deciding. Quick decisions often lead to pain and misunderstanding. We are somewhere in the middle. -- Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
The solutions requiring directory renames etc., are also a nightmare and having run Windows in Norwegian and then struggled as things fucked up as things are placed in 'Program Files' instead of 'Program Filer' in the filesystem I am sure any attempt we make at localizing directory structures will cause users much more harm than anything else. And as far as your examples go both Firefox and OpenOffice would be 'GNOME' as far as this goes. But at the end of the day these are implementation details. The real question is what problems we are trying to fix and if there is general agreement those problems need fixing. For Elisa we would really like to avoid having to present the users with a file hierarchy in the GUI if possible which means we need a means of being able to find their media files without for instance popping up a directory chooser. The simple solution is to start from the user home directory and search everything recursively. The problem with this approach is that it can be very time consuming on many users system which is why being able to depend on only needing to search certain subdirectory hierarchies could be a tempting solution. People have mentioned Tracker on this mailing list and we do plan on investigating using that as it would be a good solution to our problem. We are though a little worried about performance of such a solution, not because we know of any concrete performance hitches with Tracker, but just a general worry that a generic all directory encompassing solution might not give performance at a level acceptable to our users. From experience I know that music player developers for instance are very sensitive to how fast they are able to display items in your 10 000 song collection and get the metadata from those songs onto the screen. Christian On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:53 +, Alan wrote: > On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 17:24:21 +0100 > "Christian F.K. Schaller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > If Directory names are localized in the GUI do it really matter what > > they are called in the filesystem? I mean the whole Unix file hierarchy > > is essentially English as it is. > > Everything breaks horribly the moment the file name and the directory > name as shown by GNOME differ. The world is not GNOME. Firefox is not > GNOME, all the KDE apps are not GNOME, most proprietary software is not > GNOME, OpenOffice is not GNOME. > > For a combined GUI/Shell user doing hacks in gnomespace instead of just > using proper directory naming is a nightmare. > > Alan > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 17:24:21 +0100 "Christian F.K. Schaller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If Directory names are localized in the GUI do it really matter what > they are called in the filesystem? I mean the whole Unix file hierarchy > is essentially English as it is. Everything breaks horribly the moment the file name and the directory name as shown by GNOME differ. The world is not GNOME. Firefox is not GNOME, all the KDE apps are not GNOME, most proprietary software is not GNOME, OpenOffice is not GNOME. For a combined GUI/Shell user doing hacks in gnomespace instead of just using proper directory naming is a nightmare. Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
> * Code in multiple places to make sure directory names are migrated > when locale is changed. People may (and often will) run programs in multiple locales at a time so the migration thing probably doesn't matter. Nautilus might want a menu option on a directory for "Make this my default directory for ..." Photographs, Documents , ... which is a fairly easy to understand and natural thing Trying to do clever automatic migration is hard, and we don't need to do it so why complicate the problem space ? > * Can gconf key values default to some localizable string? > * Can places/bookmarks point to a value stored in a gconf key? Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi, > If Directory names are localized in the GUI do it really matter what > they are called in the filesystem? I mean the whole Unix file hierarchy > is essentially English as it is. ACK, The problem is how far are that directory translated in the GUI. In file chooser,t he "Desktop" folder is translated only in bookmarks. Mac OS X has nice translation of folders. Even .app are replaced with there names stored in a plist file (XML). Should we use Desktop + Desktop.desktop in order to automatically translate the entry, hiding the real one ? Thanks. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
[I'll note that the direction the rest of this thread has gone is indicative of why I'm very, very pessimistic about the long-term health of GNOME right now. Take this as a mild attempt to get back on track by talking about users and user experience instead of capitalization of directories which users should never see anyway, and which has previously been discussed repeatedly, endlessly and without resolution.] On 2/13/07, Christian F.K. Schaller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. I'd suggest that the requirement ought to be something like 'the interaction with existing GNOME systems provides a good experience for GNOME users and experienced GNOME developers.' i.e., don't "be GNOME"; be something that plays nicely with the existing GNOME Desktop. That means something like: * interoperates smoothly with the desktop user experience. Focus here on good user experience, not which technologies are used. This means you need to figure out first in what ways the desktop user experience and the media center user experience interact, before you can figure out whether or not something is GNOME-y. (The mentions of nautilus, specific music players, etc., in this thread were probably a mistake- the focus should have been on the user experience. My mistake in starting that.) * GNOME developer knowledge transfers over decently, with reasonable reasons and replacements for technologies that aren't used. For example, you're probably right that the GNOME Enterprise Desktop HIG doesn't make sense for a GNOME Media Player; but perhaps it should be a requirement that a GNOME Media Center have its own written, documented HIG. Similarly, it probably makes sense to toss a lot of API, but the release team might require that the new API surface be documented. Note that this sort of presumes that we have a good developer experience for the core desktop, which may not be true, and so we should not construe this to be a high bar. Luis ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
It does at least for applications which are not aware of anything else than the bare filesystem. Florian El mié, 14-02-2007 a las 17:24 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller escribió: > If Directory names are localized in the GUI do it really matter what > they are called in the filesystem? I mean the whole Unix file hierarchy > is essentially English as it is. > > Christian > > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:14 -0500, Martin Meyer wrote: > > Here a (possibly bad) idea for setting up the default locations for > > photos and music: > > > > Use a gconf key to specify the current locations of the Photos and > > Music places. The default directories could be localized versions of > > ~/Music and ~/Photos (my preference), and there could be a control > > panel applet to chage this. Seems like it might fit into Preferred > > Applications somehow. Also, when you change the locale of Gnome, offer > > to rename those directories to the new localized name. > > > > Pros: > > * Windows uses a registry key to point to where My Document is > > already, so it's not an unheardof technique. > > * If the default locale of the system isn't english on the first > > statup of gnome then there would be a localized directory name by > > default. > > * Directory names could change with locale > > > > Cons/questions: > > * Code in multiple places to make sure directory names are migrated > > when locale is changed. > > * Can gconf key values default to some localizable string? > > * Can places/bookmarks point to a value stored in a gconf key? > > > > Martin > > > > On 2/14/07, Alan Horkan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Ross Burton wrote: > > > > > > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:26 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > > > > > I was also surprised why them people on this thread were so concerned > > > > > by Music and whatever folders they want to store the media in when you > > > > > can just index the whole thing, and thanks for mentioning that > > > > > fabulous Tracker of things. I wouldn't have explained better why an > > > > > indexer would be so much better than yet-more-standards where to put > > > > > media in (and I think that Sound Juicer patch should be thrown far > > > > > away). > > > > > > > This isn't a discussion about indexing. Indexing is great, we all know > > > > that. This is a discussion about how to get hold of pre-defined > > > > locations (like where the user wants their photos, their music, their > > > > documents). > > > > > > Nicely put. > > > > > > > > I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My > > > > > Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory > > > > > the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. > > > > > > > > $ ls -d */ > > > > Archives/ Documents/ Maildir/ Pictures/ public_html/ Templates/ > > > > bin/ Local/ Mess/ Programming/ Music/WebSites/ > > > > > > > > I must be ridiculous. > > > > > > > > You are marking youself as a hard-core terminal geek by saying that > > > > "music" is beautiful but "Music" is ugly. Most "normal" (read: > > > > non-geeks) people capitalise these directories. I'm a geek but I like > > > > them to be uppercase as they are proper nouns, effectively. > > > > > > I thought real geeks could all touch-type at ludicrous speeds and were > > > unafraid of capital letters? Dont "real geeks" use directory names > > > starting with capitals and file names starting with lowercase? (or some > > > other highly elaborate naming scheme. I'll stop before this turns in to a > > > Four Yorkshiremen parody) > > > ;P > > > > > > -- > > > Alan > > > ___ > > > desktop-devel-list mailing list > > > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > > > > > ___ > > desktop-devel-list mailing list > > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
If Directory names are localized in the GUI do it really matter what they are called in the filesystem? I mean the whole Unix file hierarchy is essentially English as it is. Christian On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:14 -0500, Martin Meyer wrote: > Here a (possibly bad) idea for setting up the default locations for > photos and music: > > Use a gconf key to specify the current locations of the Photos and > Music places. The default directories could be localized versions of > ~/Music and ~/Photos (my preference), and there could be a control > panel applet to chage this. Seems like it might fit into Preferred > Applications somehow. Also, when you change the locale of Gnome, offer > to rename those directories to the new localized name. > > Pros: > * Windows uses a registry key to point to where My Document is > already, so it's not an unheardof technique. > * If the default locale of the system isn't english on the first > statup of gnome then there would be a localized directory name by > default. > * Directory names could change with locale > > Cons/questions: > * Code in multiple places to make sure directory names are migrated > when locale is changed. > * Can gconf key values default to some localizable string? > * Can places/bookmarks point to a value stored in a gconf key? > > Martin > > On 2/14/07, Alan Horkan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Ross Burton wrote: > > > > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:26 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > > > > I was also surprised why them people on this thread were so concerned > > > > by Music and whatever folders they want to store the media in when you > > > > can just index the whole thing, and thanks for mentioning that > > > > fabulous Tracker of things. I wouldn't have explained better why an > > > > indexer would be so much better than yet-more-standards where to put > > > > media in (and I think that Sound Juicer patch should be thrown far > > > > away). > > > > > This isn't a discussion about indexing. Indexing is great, we all know > > > that. This is a discussion about how to get hold of pre-defined > > > locations (like where the user wants their photos, their music, their > > > documents). > > > > Nicely put. > > > > > > I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My > > > > Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory > > > > the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. > > > > > > $ ls -d */ > > > Archives/ Documents/ Maildir/ Pictures/ public_html/ Templates/ > > > bin/ Local/ Mess/ Programming/ Music/WebSites/ > > > > > > I must be ridiculous. > > > > > > You are marking youself as a hard-core terminal geek by saying that > > > "music" is beautiful but "Music" is ugly. Most "normal" (read: > > > non-geeks) people capitalise these directories. I'm a geek but I like > > > them to be uppercase as they are proper nouns, effectively. > > > > I thought real geeks could all touch-type at ludicrous speeds and were > > unafraid of capital letters? Dont "real geeks" use directory names > > starting with capitals and file names starting with lowercase? (or some > > other highly elaborate naming scheme. I'll stop before this turns in to a > > Four Yorkshiremen parody) > > ;P > > > > -- > > Alan > > ___ > > desktop-devel-list mailing list > > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Here a (possibly bad) idea for setting up the default locations for photos and music: Use a gconf key to specify the current locations of the Photos and Music places. The default directories could be localized versions of ~/Music and ~/Photos (my preference), and there could be a control panel applet to chage this. Seems like it might fit into Preferred Applications somehow. Also, when you change the locale of Gnome, offer to rename those directories to the new localized name. Pros: * Windows uses a registry key to point to where My Document is already, so it's not an unheardof technique. * If the default locale of the system isn't english on the first statup of gnome then there would be a localized directory name by default. * Directory names could change with locale Cons/questions: * Code in multiple places to make sure directory names are migrated when locale is changed. * Can gconf key values default to some localizable string? * Can places/bookmarks point to a value stored in a gconf key? Martin On 2/14/07, Alan Horkan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Ross Burton wrote: > > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:26 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > > > I was also surprised why them people on this thread were so concerned > > > by Music and whatever folders they want to store the media in when you > > > can just index the whole thing, and thanks for mentioning that > > > fabulous Tracker of things. I wouldn't have explained better why an > > > indexer would be so much better than yet-more-standards where to put > > > media in (and I think that Sound Juicer patch should be thrown far > > > away). > > > This isn't a discussion about indexing. Indexing is great, we all know > > that. This is a discussion about how to get hold of pre-defined > > locations (like where the user wants their photos, their music, their > > documents). > > Nicely put. > > > > I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My > > > Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory > > > the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. > > > > $ ls -d */ > > Archives/ Documents/ Maildir/ Pictures/ public_html/ Templates/ > > bin/ Local/ Mess/ Programming/ Music/WebSites/ > > > > I must be ridiculous. > > > > You are marking youself as a hard-core terminal geek by saying that > > "music" is beautiful but "Music" is ugly. Most "normal" (read: > > non-geeks) people capitalise these directories. I'm a geek but I like > > them to be uppercase as they are proper nouns, effectively. > > I thought real geeks could all touch-type at ludicrous speeds and were > unafraid of capital letters? Dont "real geeks" use directory names > starting with capitals and file names starting with lowercase? (or some > other highly elaborate naming scheme. I'll stop before this turns in to a > Four Yorkshiremen parody) > ;P > > -- > Alan > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Ross Burton wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:26 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > > I was also surprised why them people on this thread were so concerned > > by Music and whatever folders they want to store the media in when you > > can just index the whole thing, and thanks for mentioning that > > fabulous Tracker of things. I wouldn't have explained better why an > > indexer would be so much better than yet-more-standards where to put > > media in (and I think that Sound Juicer patch should be thrown far > > away). > This isn't a discussion about indexing. Indexing is great, we all know > that. This is a discussion about how to get hold of pre-defined > locations (like where the user wants their photos, their music, their > documents). Nicely put. > > I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My > > Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory > > the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. > > $ ls -d */ > Archives/ Documents/ Maildir/ Pictures/ public_html/ Templates/ > bin/ Local/ Mess/ Programming/ Music/WebSites/ > > I must be ridiculous. > > You are marking youself as a hard-core terminal geek by saying that > "music" is beautiful but "Music" is ugly. Most "normal" (read: > non-geeks) people capitalise these directories. I'm a geek but I like > them to be uppercase as they are proper nouns, effectively. I thought real geeks could all touch-type at ludicrous speeds and were unafraid of capital letters? Dont "real geeks" use directory names starting with capitals and file names starting with lowercase? (or some other highly elaborate naming scheme. I'll stop before this turns in to a Four Yorkshiremen parody) ;P -- Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hello, Before thinking about a media centre for GNOME, it is really important to understand that any media centre relies heavily on indexed metadata. As a developer of the Elisa media centre, I would rather focus on usability issue and multimedia features than on doing over and over again the indexing chore. Therefore, I feel a need for the 3 following things, which would all be very profitable to any media centre and of course to the GNOME desktop multimedia experience: 1) A common metadata specification. 2) A piece of software which is able to scan files locally and over any network protocol and to index the metadata it finds. 3) A common API to access these metadata. 1) is already under development on the freedesktop wiki: http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/shared-filemetadata-spec 2) Tracker is on its way to fill the need thanks to Jamie McCracken and the Tracker team (http://live.gnome.org/Tracker), and was proposed for inclusion in GNOME 2.18 (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2007-January/msg00083.html). As far as I know, it lacks of network transparency and does more than indexing metadata but also indexes content. As Emmanuele Bassi noted (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2007-January/msg00090.html), one should consider Tracker-the-indexer here, not the whole bundle. 3) Tracker provides a D-BUS API to access the metadata, and if I remember correctly, a library which wraps it. Have a nice day! Florian On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 15:39 -0500, Martin Meyer wrote: > I for one would like to see a network file browser of some kind in any > media center app. If I run this Gnome Media Center on an HTPC in my > living room, I want to be able to access the media stored *anywhere* > in my house. The majority of it is on my desktop, but when someone > comes over with a Windows laptop and I want to play a video off it, > I'm not going to want to open an SSH window and mount the share! > I guess my main point is that not all video you want to play needs to > be in your "Personal Media Database" thing, it could be anywhere. This > volatile media doesn't need to remain present after it's played. > > I know this is not really at the core of this discussion but I think > it's an important consideration for such an application to be > successful. If this is a real Gnome Media Center then Nautilus should > be able to provide some assistance here, no? After all, totem and > mplayer and xine all support playing directly from smb shares. > > Martin Meyer > > On 2/13/07, Alex Jones wrote: > > I think what is needed here is an (albeit huge) co-ordinated effort into > > some kind of GNOME Media system, where a video player (Totem) and a > > music jukebox (Rhythmbox) and a media centre (???) can share code, > > libraries, UI conventions, and importantly, one database. > > > > I don't see a lot of point in bouncing along otherwise - I fear the > > result will be a half-baked mess with no consistency. > > > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 19:13 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 17:51 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been > > > > mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa > > > > be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the > > > > community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. > > > > > > > > We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, > > > > but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the > > > > stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to > > > > do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much > > > > of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for > > > > inspiration. > > > > > > > > We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, > > > > be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be > > > > mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media > > > > applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media > > > > files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. > > > > > > > that should be the first step. Right now, I have to create separate > > > music databases whether I use banshee or rhythmbox (or at least that's > > > how it was last times I switched from one to the other). > > > > > > Also, making this 'database' keep videos, photos, etc, would be a good > > > first step. > > > > > > > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > > > > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > > > > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. > > > > > > > > A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the > > > > desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu > > > > entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. > > > > >
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 00:08 +1300, John Stowers wrote: > > Mandriva provide default directory layout for Music, image, etc. How do > > Mac OS X ? I guess we should have something similar to g_get_home_dir > > (), g_get_config_dir () for media. This should be done in XDG. > > This sounds a bit like we are doing the job of the computer here. To a > large extent I dont care where my photos are, where my music is, > directories are s 1990's. I just want it to show in my media > center. if you don't care where stuff goes, then you're going to pay a penalty of disk seeks, ruining performances that tracker *might* save. also, keeping stuff indexed all the place means that the indexer must stroll through the disk - another performance penalty. this is not a problem for tracker; this is a problem for programmatically access directories - with the added twist of localising their name without actually having to create localised directories on disk. oh, and please, for the love of what's holy and sacred in the universe: stop plugging tracker for every task you can conceive. we understand it's good, that you've worked on it and whatever - but tracker is not the solution to all the problems of thw world; otherwise it should have been called "panacea". pretty please, with sugar on top. ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 16:26 +0200, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > I was also surprised why them people on this thread were so concerned > by Music and whatever folders they want to store the media in when you > can just index the whole thing, and thanks for mentioning that > fabulous Tracker of things. I wouldn't have explained better why an > indexer would be so much better than yet-more-standards where to put > media in (and I think that Sound Juicer patch should be thrown far > away). So in the indexed world all files go into ~/, right? Because tracker/beagle will magically index and let me search for what I want? That's nice but without a new file system I'd hate to see the performance of getting the directory list when all of my files are not structured. This isn't a discussion about indexing. Indexing is great, we all know that. This is a discussion about how to get hold of pre-defined locations (like where the user wants their photos, their music, their documents). > I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My > Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory > the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. $ ls -d */ Archives/ Documents/ Maildir/ Pictures/ public_html/ Templates/ bin/ Local/ Mess/ Programming/ Music/WebSites/ I must be ridiculous. You are marking youself as a hard-core terminal geek by saying that "music" is beautiful but "Music" is ugly. Most "normal" (read: non-geeks) people capitalise these directories. I'm a geek but I like them to be uppercase as they are proper nouns, effectively. Ross -- Ross Burton mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www: http://www.burtonini.com./ PGP Fingerprint: 1A21 F5B0 D8D0 CFE3 81D4 E25A 2D09 E447 D0B4 33DF signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On 2/14/07, John Stowers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mandriva provide default directory layout for Music, image, etc. How do > > Mac OS X ? I guess we should have something similar to g_get_home_dir > > (), g_get_config_dir () for media. This should be done in XDG. > > This sounds a bit like we are doing the job of the computer here. To a > large extent I dont care where my photos are, where my music is, > directories are s 1990's. I just want it to show in my media > center. > > A rich desktop wide metadata store will be able to find all my music > for free, find all my photos. My mum likes to store things in "My > Pictures" but when she forgets then she is practically lost when it > comes to tracking down here files > > We can improve the situation by agreeing on sane defaults, XDG wide, > or we can embrace a system where we are free from remembering where we > store stuff. > > I could explicitly plug tracker here but im sure other wasabi [0] > compatible systems will get the job done. > > In the case of a media center (im thinking of xbox media center > because thats what I use but the concept is general enough) A > directory based layout is practically never shown to the user anyway, > its "Songs by this artist" "Photos from this week" etc. It therefor > seems unneeded work to create a standard directory layout for Music > etc when its going to need to be presented to the user in a whole > bunch of new ways. Let alone the corner cases that are going to be > hard to cover. I dont think a hard coded approach scales... > > So lets embrace a GNOME desktop where the heavy lifting is done for us > and we use the metadata from the files. Ive said it before but Tracker > [1] can facilitate these use cases, and more. I was also surprised why them people on this thread were so concerned by Music and whatever folders they want to store the media in when you can just index the whole thing, and thanks for mentioning that fabulous Tracker of things. I wouldn't have explained better why an indexer would be so much better than yet-more-standards where to put media in (and I think that Sound Juicer patch should be thrown far away). OT: I always found the Microsoft way of naming things ridiculous (My Documents, Program Files), and I surely won't name my music directory the ugly Music, rather 'music' or 'sounds' or whatever else but Music. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 14:15 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 13:50 +, Richard Hughes wrote: > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:08 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > > as we do with the icons (for the cache) and the MIME associations, we > > > (gtk+) can provide a small tool for installing the desktop places > > > bookmarks: > > > > > > gtk-bookmark-install sound-juicer.places > > > > > > this tool can do conflict resolution > > > > How? Surely we just want to stick with one default (unless the user or > > admin changes it) and stick with it? > > a plausible hierarchy could be: > > highest priority > user - (.local/share/places) > administrator - (/etc/xdg/share/places) > system - (/usr/share/places) > lowest priority Yes, this seems very sane. > > > > Should "the desktop" > > > > ship a standard set of bookmarks > > > > > > this too could be doable for standard installations. another > > > interesting bit is the ability for system administrators to add > > > standard > > > places to internal resources for their users. > > > > This is quite a compelling use case: so what now - anyone want to start > > hacking on this? > > I'll be working on the file chooser format switch from .gtk-bookmarks to > a bookmark file; also, since the same format is used by gnome-panel and > nautilus, I'll work on them. GBookmarkFile can already load a bookmark > from $XDG_DATA_DIR (g_bookmark_file_load_from_data_dirs()), so we just > need to have a standard directory layout for the files. I'll also write > the installer/merger for GTK+ - unless someone beats me to it. :-) Thanks! Keep rocking Emmanuele :-) Richard. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
hi; On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 13:50 +, Richard Hughes wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:08 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > as we do with the icons (for the cache) and the MIME associations, we > > (gtk+) can provide a small tool for installing the desktop places > > bookmarks: > > > > gtk-bookmark-install sound-juicer.places > > > > this tool can do conflict resolution > > How? Surely we just want to stick with one default (unless the user or > admin changes it) and stick with it? a plausible hierarchy could be: highest priority user - (.local/share/places) administrator - (/etc/xdg/share/places) system - (/usr/share/places) lowest priority > > > Should "the desktop" > > > ship a standard set of bookmarks > > > > this too could be doable for standard installations. another > > interesting bit is the ability for system administrators to add > > standard > > places to internal resources for their users. > > This is quite a compelling use case: so what now - anyone want to start > hacking on this? I'll be working on the file chooser format switch from .gtk-bookmarks to a bookmark file; also, since the same format is used by gnome-panel and nautilus, I'll work on them. GBookmarkFile can already load a bookmark from $XDG_DATA_DIR (g_bookmark_file_load_from_data_dirs()), so we just need to have a standard directory layout for the files. I'll also write the installer/merger for GTK+ - unless someone beats me to it. :-) ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
> I already consider it a bug that f-spot forces ~/Photos on me, if it Seconded with the various directories. > becomes the norm to assume that people speak English or even like their > interface in English I'd have to dig my eyeballs out or something to > bear the pain. > > There has to be a way to ensure we get proper i18n names on those > folders. You just create them with the right name in the first place, and use the bookmarks to point at the internationalised name. Providing there is a mechanism for multiple applications to know which bookmark to share (ie what is a 'music' bookmark) it should all work fine. ie not Photos -> file://home/me/Photographs but [Mediatype: Photograph]-> "Lluniau"->file://home/fi/Lluniau and deal in terms of an abstracted 'media type' not the bookmark name. This has been the case for years but there is a huge resistance from some folks (mostly English-first speakers). I guess they don't understand how annoying having random bits of other language on your desktop is even if there isn't also political baggage associated with that language (as is often the case). Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
> I already consider it a bug that f-spot forces ~/Photos on me, if it > becomes the norm to assume that people speak English or even like their > interface in English I'd have to dig my eyeballs out or something to > bear the pain. Sorry to cut in here guys, but wouldn't it be easy to just create some kind of an app - favourite places or so, akin to favourite apps- to let the user specify where they want their photos, where they want their videos, where they want their music and so on...? ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:08 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > as we do with the icons (for the cache) and the MIME associations, we > (gtk+) can provide a small tool for installing the desktop places > bookmarks: > > gtk-bookmark-install sound-juicer.places > > this tool can do conflict resolution How? Surely we just want to stick with one default (unless the user or admin changes it) and stick with it? > > Should "the desktop" > > ship a standard set of bookmarks > > this too could be doable for standard installations. another > interesting bit is the ability for system administrators to add > standard > places to internal resources for their users. This is quite a compelling use case: so what now - anyone want to start hacking on this? Richard. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
ons, 14 02 2007 kl. 11:02 +, skrev Ross Burton: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:44 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > there was a proposal for the "desktop places" on the wiki: > > > > http://live.gnome.org/DesktopPlaces > > > > which is entirely doable now that we have an API to access local > > bookmarks (GBookmarkFile in GLib). applications can install a bookmark > > for their folder, which has a "title" that can be translated like we > > localise schemas for GConf and desktop entries for the menu, and point > > it to the unlocalised directory on disk: > > > > Music -> file:///home/ebassi/Music > > Photos -> file:///home/ebassi/Photos > > So Sound Juicer would install a "Music" bookmark, right? Rhythmbox and > Muine would want to do the same, so what happens here? Would these be > physical files so would conflict when packaged? Should "the desktop" > ship a standard set of bookmarks, or should there be some way of merging > multiple identical bookmarks. I already consider it a bug that f-spot forces ~/Photos on me, if it becomes the norm to assume that people speak English or even like their interface in English I'd have to dig my eyeballs out or something to bear the pain. There has to be a way to ensure we get proper i18n names on those folders. - David -- "Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.” -Thomas Jefferson signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 13:19 +, Alan Horkan wrote: > I disagree strongly but that isn't important right now. Although we could > drag the discussion on further, you trimmed the most (only?) important > part of the message, I hope we can both agree we do need standard folders > for things like Music and Pictures. I trimmed that part specifically because I agree with you and keeping it just for writing "me too" wouldn't have made much sense. ;-) ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi, Anjuta also propose ~/Projects, gnome-user-share use ~/Public, and apache use ~/public_html (locally, i use ~/WWW). etc. Étienne. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
I disagree strongly but that isn't important right now. Although we could drag the discussion on further, you trimmed the most (only?) important part of the message, I hope we can both agree we do need standard folders for things like Music and Pictures. Sincerely Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/alanhorkan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 12:59 +, Alan Horkan wrote: > > > we already have Documents (what do we do there for translation?), so it > > > makes a lot of sense to just use subfolders there, instead of populating > > > the home folder > > > > my music is not a "document". > > In the sense of an "office document" that is understandable but in the > sense of Gnome being a document centric system it very much is a document. being GNOME far from having a pure document-centric system, I'd say that the burden of demonstrating that a photo is a document for the user lies on you. anyway, I agree that from a theoretical standpoint a "photo" is a document; but for the user a photo is a photo (is a photo); a mp3 track is music; and an openoffice word processor file is a document. document is something akin to "text", be it in form of words (word processor) or numbers (spreadsheet). > > as are my photos, my pictures (yes, it's > > different), my videos, etc. > > Documents in this context does not mean only office documents as some have > taken it to mean, it means users files, as opposed to configes. not in my experience as an administrator. a document is usually an office document in the mind of most users. ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:48:28 + > From: Emmanuele Bassi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > Subject: Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center > > hi; > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 13:47 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 12:07 +, Alan Horkan wrote: > > > > > > [Personally I think a folder ~/Documents/ is needed with other user files > > > such as music, pictures, spreadsheets, and anything else getting put in > > > subfolders of ~/Documents/ rather than creating lots of folders like > > > ~/Music directly in the home directory > > > > > we already have Documents (what do we do there for translation?), so it > > makes a lot of sense to just use subfolders there, instead of populating > > the home folder > > my music is not a "document". In the sense of an "office document" that is understandable but in the sense of Gnome being a document centric system it very much is a document. You will need to further explain how you think these are not documents. > as are my photos, my pictures (yes, it's > different), my videos, etc. Documents in this context does not mean only office documents as some have taken it to mean, it means users files, as opposed to configes. > we already have ~/Templates, ~/Desktop and ~/Documents: why shoving > stuff under an arbitrary point which makes little sense? Some users still like to use $HOME as their Desktop and keep the desktop as clear and tidy as possible. (And I belatedly disagree with templates getting a top level directory, I dont recall if I said anything at the time.) The disagreements over how and why are not so important as picking one way or the other and deciding to create that Music folder (preferably picking something KDE would be likely to go along with). -- Alan ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
hi; On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 13:47 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 12:07 +, Alan Horkan wrote: > > > > [Personally I think a folder ~/Documents/ is needed with other user files > > such as music, pictures, spreadsheets, and anything else getting put in > > subfolders of ~/Documents/ rather than creating lots of folders like > > ~/Music directly in the home directory > > > we already have Documents (what do we do there for translation?), so it > makes a lot of sense to just use subfolders there, instead of populating > the home folder my music is not a "document". as are my photos, my pictures (yes, it's different), my videos, etc. we already have ~/Templates, ~/Desktop and ~/Documents: why shoving stuff under an arbitrary point which makes little sense? ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 12:07 +, Alan Horkan wrote: > > [Personally I think a folder ~/Documents/ is needed with other user files > such as music, pictures, spreadsheets, and anything else getting put in > subfolders of ~/Documents/ rather than creating lots of folders like > ~/Music directly in the home directory > we already have Documents (what do we do there for translation?), so it makes a lot of sense to just use subfolders there, instead of populating the home folder -- Rodrigo Moya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007, Ross Burton wrote: > Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:22:37 + > From: Ross Burton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: GNOME Desktop Devel List > Subject: Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center > > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:56 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > As for a shared database this might be a good idea, but I will leave > > that up to application writers to decide, for me a good start would be > > that all Music applications for instance tried hard to get people to > > save their Music under $HOME/Music for instance. That way when you > > start > > another Music application or Elisa you don't need to specify which > > directory to look for Music inn. Similar conventions would be good for > > pictures and movies and album/dvd cover art. > > Just last week I got a bug report and a patch for this in Sound Juicer. > It hard-codes the default location to save files as ~/Music/. Now, my > question is this: do I commit this, or do we need a more powerful system > that handles i18n? I'm sure a Persian GNOME user would not like their > music in ~/Music/. One quick solution is to translate the string > "Music"... is that enough? We've run around this mulberry bush many times before[1], especially when it came to talking about the Desktop folder and a Documents folder. The question of what about non-English users will likely be followed by what about multilingual users and many more questions. It is very easy to make this problem very complicated but the simple truth is the file system is full of folders with English names and that isn't going to change. Delaying this even longer is a disservice to Gnome users, even the non-English speakers. Hopefuly what might change is that Gnome might finally be ablet decide on some kind of suitable default folders for Documents, Music, and Pictures. Sure some users will organise themselves and others will not organise anything at all but by providing good default save locations there will be a whole lot of people in the middle who will get a little bit more organised thanks to the affordance provided. [Personally I think a folder ~/Documents/ is needed with other user files such as music, pictures, spreadsheets, and anything else getting put in subfolders of ~/Documents/ rather than creating lots of folders like ~/Music directly in the home directory but either way I'd be very happy if we could push to make something happen here, just so long as we avoid sticking the patronising "My " prefix in front of everything (which thankfully Microsoft have finally dropped).] -- Alan [1] Various discussions on standard folders such as "Documents" http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-January/msg00273.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-October/msg00016.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-June/msg00089.html ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
hi; On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:02 +, Ross Burton wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:44 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > > there was a proposal for the "desktop places" on the wiki: > > > > http://live.gnome.org/DesktopPlaces > > > > which is entirely doable now that we have an API to access local > > bookmarks (GBookmarkFile in GLib). applications can install a bookmark > > for their folder, which has a "title" that can be translated like we > > localise schemas for GConf and desktop entries for the menu, and point > > it to the unlocalised directory on disk: > > > > Music -> file:///home/ebassi/Music > > Photos -> file:///home/ebassi/Photos > > So Sound Juicer would install a "Music" bookmark, right? Rhythmbox and > Muine would want to do the same, so what happens here? Would these be > physical files so would conflict when packaged? as we do with the icons (for the cache) and the MIME associations, we (gtk+) can provide a small tool for installing the desktop places bookmarks: gtk-bookmark-install sound-juicer.places this tool can do conflict resolution and should also do the merging of all the desktop places into a single cache file (applications can still load a single set of bookmarks, but the file chooser and others will probably want to load the whole lot by mmap()-ing the cache). > Should "the desktop" > ship a standard set of bookmarks this too could be doable for standard installations. another interesting bit is the ability for system administrators to add standard places to internal resources for their users. ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
> Mandriva provide default directory layout for Music, image, etc. How do > Mac OS X ? I guess we should have something similar to g_get_home_dir > (), g_get_config_dir () for media. This should be done in XDG. This sounds a bit like we are doing the job of the computer here. To a large extent I dont care where my photos are, where my music is, directories are s 1990's. I just want it to show in my media center. A rich desktop wide metadata store will be able to find all my music for free, find all my photos. My mum likes to store things in "My Pictures" but when she forgets then she is practically lost when it comes to tracking down here files We can improve the situation by agreeing on sane defaults, XDG wide, or we can embrace a system where we are free from remembering where we store stuff. I could explicitly plug tracker here but im sure other wasabi [0] compatible systems will get the job done. In the case of a media center (im thinking of xbox media center because thats what I use but the concept is general enough) A directory based layout is practically never shown to the user anyway, its "Songs by this artist" "Photos from this week" etc. It therefor seems unneeded work to create a standard directory layout for Music etc when its going to need to be presented to the user in a whole bunch of new ways. Let alone the corner cases that are going to be hard to cover. I dont think a hard coded approach scales... So lets embrace a GNOME desktop where the heavy lifting is done for us and we use the metadata from the files. Ive said it before but Tracker [1] can facilitate these use cases, and more. John [0] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/WasabiAbout [1] http://www.gnome.org/projects/tracker/ > > Étienne. > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 11:02 +, Ross Burton wrote: > > So Sound Juicer would install a "Music" bookmark, right? Rhythmbox > and > Muine would want to do the same, so what happens here? Would these be > physical files so would conflict when packaged? Should "the desktop" > ship a standard set of bookmarks, or should there be some way of > merging > multiple identical bookmarks. Nahh, one package should ship all of them, and distros (like mandriva) are free to patch this how they like. Something uber-small like gnome-default-locations would be great IMO. Richard. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:44 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > there was a proposal for the "desktop places" on the wiki: > > http://live.gnome.org/DesktopPlaces > > which is entirely doable now that we have an API to access local > bookmarks (GBookmarkFile in GLib). applications can install a bookmark > for their folder, which has a "title" that can be translated like we > localise schemas for GConf and desktop entries for the menu, and point > it to the unlocalised directory on disk: > > Music -> file:///home/ebassi/Music > Photos -> file:///home/ebassi/Photos So Sound Juicer would install a "Music" bookmark, right? Rhythmbox and Muine would want to do the same, so what happens here? Would these be physical files so would conflict when packaged? Should "the desktop" ship a standard set of bookmarks, or should there be some way of merging multiple identical bookmarks. Ross -- Ross Burton mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www: http://www.burtonini.com./ PGP Fingerprint: 1A21 F5B0 D8D0 CFE3 81D4 E25A 2D09 E447 D0B4 33DF signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:44 +, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: > which is entirely doable now that we have an API to access local > bookmarks (GBookmarkFile in GLib). applications can install a > bookmark > for their folder, which has a "title" that can be translated like we > localise schemas for GConf and desktop entries for the menu, and point > it to the unlocalised directory on disk: > > Music -> file:///home/ebassi/Music > Photos -> file:///home/ebassi/Photos I like this a lot. Richard. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
hi; On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:22 +, Ross Burton wrote: > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:56 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > As for a shared database this might be a good idea, but I will leave > > that up to application writers to decide, for me a good start would be > > that all Music applications for instance tried hard to get people to > > save their Music under $HOME/Music for instance. That way when you > > start > > another Music application or Elisa you don't need to specify which > > directory to look for Music inn. Similar conventions would be good for > > pictures and movies and album/dvd cover art. > > Just last week I got a bug report and a patch for this in Sound Juicer. > It hard-codes the default location to save files as ~/Music/. Now, my > question is this: do I commit this, or do we need a more powerful system > that handles i18n? I'm sure a Persian GNOME user would not like their > music in ~/Music/. One quick solution is to translate the string > "Music"... is that enough? translating is fine for new users; old users will have a hard time moving stuff from their default directories which may or may not already be set to the translation of "Music". for instance, my music folder is $HOME/Music, and it's been like that even when my desktop was localised in italian (for a while now it's been moved to en_GB). there was a proposal for the "desktop places" on the wiki: http://live.gnome.org/DesktopPlaces which is entirely doable now that we have an API to access local bookmarks (GBookmarkFile in GLib). applications can install a bookmark for their folder, which has a "title" that can be translated like we localise schemas for GConf and desktop entries for the menu, and point it to the unlocalised directory on disk: Music -> file:///home/ebassi/Music Photos -> file:///home/ebassi/Photos this bookmark could be picked up by the file chooser[1] and nautilus; if rhythmbox installed its own "desktop place" for its collection, sound juicer could access it and use it as its own target directory; f-spot and gthumb could share the same directory for my photos collection. since the API for accessing the bookmarks is public we could have a small "places editor" like we have a menu editor, and let the user move around the desktop places the way he wants in a centralised fashion. it's just a matter of making all these pieces fit, but it's not a great deal. +++ [1] GtkFileChooser should move to the semi-private format it uses to the bookmark file format (while retaining backward comapibility); I'm working on a patch for this to happen. ciao, Emmanuele. -- Emmanuele Bassi, E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.net B: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi, > Just last week I got a bug report and a patch for this in Sound Juicer. > It hard-codes the default location to save files as ~/Music/. Now, my > question is this: do I commit this, or do we need a more powerful system > that handles i18n? I'm sure a Persian GNOME user would not like their > music in ~/Music/. One quick solution is to translate the string > "Music"... is that enough? Mandriva provide default directory layout for Music, image, etc. How do Mac OS X ? I guess we should have something similar to g_get_home_dir (), g_get_config_dir () for media. This should be done in XDG. Étienne. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 10:56 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > As for a shared database this might be a good idea, but I will leave > that up to application writers to decide, for me a good start would be > that all Music applications for instance tried hard to get people to > save their Music under $HOME/Music for instance. That way when you > start > another Music application or Elisa you don't need to specify which > directory to look for Music inn. Similar conventions would be good for > pictures and movies and album/dvd cover art. Just last week I got a bug report and a patch for this in Sound Juicer. It hard-codes the default location to save files as ~/Music/. Now, my question is this: do I commit this, or do we need a more powerful system that handles i18n? I'm sure a Persian GNOME user would not like their music in ~/Music/. One quick solution is to translate the string "Music"... is that enough? Ross -- Ross Burton mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www: http://www.burtonini.com./ PGP Fingerprint: 1A21 F5B0 D8D0 CFE3 81D4 E25A 2D09 E447 D0B4 33DF signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 15:39 -0500, Martin Meyer wrote: > I for one would like to see a network file browser of some kind in any > media center app. If I run this Gnome Media Center on an HTPC in my > living room, I want to be able to access the media stored *anywhere* > in my house. The majority of it is on my desktop, but when someone > comes over with a Windows laptop and I want to play a video off it, > I'm not going to want to open an SSH window and mount the share! Well this is what systems such as upnp a/v and DAAP tries to accomplish. Elisa already supports upnp a/v (which is the major standard used in the Windows world and also among a lot of hardware makers) and Rhythmbox, Banshee and more support DAAP. DAAP support in Elisa is planed and I am trying to encourage the application makers to also support upnp a/v. Christian > I guess my main point is that not all video you want to play needs to > be in your "Personal Media Database" thing, it could be anywhere. This > volatile media doesn't need to remain present after it's played. > > I know this is not really at the core of this discussion but I think > it's an important consideration for such an application to be > successful. If this is a real Gnome Media Center then Nautilus should > be able to provide some assistance here, no? After all, totem and > mplayer and xine all support playing directly from smb shares. > > Martin Meyer > > On 2/13/07, Alex Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I think what is needed here is an (albeit huge) co-ordinated effort into > > some kind of GNOME Media system, where a video player (Totem) and a > > music jukebox (Rhythmbox) and a media centre (???) can share code, > > libraries, UI conventions, and importantly, one database. > > > > I don't see a lot of point in bouncing along otherwise - I fear the > > result will be a half-baked mess with no consistency. > > > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 19:13 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 17:51 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been > > > > mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa > > > > be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the > > > > community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. > > > > > > > > We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, > > > > but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the > > > > stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to > > > > do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much > > > > of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for > > > > inspiration. > > > > > > > > We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, > > > > be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be > > > > mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media > > > > applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media > > > > files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. > > > > > > > that should be the first step. Right now, I have to create separate > > > music databases whether I use banshee or rhythmbox (or at least that's > > > how it was last times I switched from one to the other). > > > > > > Also, making this 'database' keep videos, photos, etc, would be a good > > > first step. > > > > > > > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > > > > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > > > > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. > > > > > > > > A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the > > > > desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu > > > > entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. > > > > > > > for the GNOME interface (to be run on a GNOME desktop), I really think > > > this is very much needed. While we, at least myself, are ok with music > > > (rhythmbox and banshee are great) and photos (gthumb and f-spot), we > > > have nothing similar to this for videos. It would so be really nice to > > > have a simple interface to all your music and videos and photos, without > > > having to run the full GDM Elisa session. > > -- > > Alex Jones > > http://alex.weej.com/ > > > > ___ > > desktop-devel-list mailing list > > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Well I am not sure how 'huge' this effort needs to be as we have a lot of these places implicitly in place already. Everything uses GStreamer which means a shared library and a lot of shared code already. A recent example here is that I know both Rhythmbox and Exaile hackers are working on adding Equalizer support, both helping out with and using a new Equalizer plugin recently added to gst-plugins-bad CVS. On top of that there is a lot of direct code sharing between the projects, like Rhythmbox (and I think others) using Totems playlist parser library as one example. For UI conventions most of these apps tries hard to follow the GNOME UI guidelines, but as I mentioned before I am not sure this is relevant for Elisa as Elisa is a GUI targeted at use with a remote control, not a mouse and keyboard, which makes 'desktop' UI conventions a bit off. As for a shared database this might be a good idea, but I will leave that up to application writers to decide, for me a good start would be that all Music applications for instance tried hard to get people to save their Music under $HOME/Music for instance. That way when you start another Music application or Elisa you don't need to specify which directory to look for Music inn. Similar conventions would be good for pictures and movies and album/dvd cover art. Christian On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 18:15 +, Alex Jones wrote: > I think what is needed here is an (albeit huge) co-ordinated effort into > some kind of GNOME Media system, where a video player (Totem) and a > music jukebox (Rhythmbox) and a media centre (???) can share code, > libraries, UI conventions, and importantly, one database. > > I don't see a lot of point in bouncing along otherwise - I fear the > result will be a half-baked mess with no consistency. > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 19:13 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 17:51 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > > Hi, > > > Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been > > > mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa > > > be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the > > > community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. > > > > > > We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, > > > but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the > > > stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to > > > do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much > > > of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for > > > inspiration. > > > > > > We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, > > > be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be > > > mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media > > > applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media > > > files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. > > > > > that should be the first step. Right now, I have to create separate > > music databases whether I use banshee or rhythmbox (or at least that's > > how it was last times I switched from one to the other). > > > > Also, making this 'database' keep videos, photos, etc, would be a good > > first step. > > > > > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > > > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > > > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. > > > > > > A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the > > > desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu > > > entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. > > > > > for the GNOME interface (to be run on a GNOME desktop), I really think > > this is very much needed. While we, at least myself, are ok with music > > (rhythmbox and banshee are great) and photos (gthumb and f-spot), we > > have nothing similar to this for videos. It would so be really nice to > > have a simple interface to all your music and videos and photos, without > > having to run the full GDM Elisa session. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
I for one would like to see a network file browser of some kind in any media center app. If I run this Gnome Media Center on an HTPC in my living room, I want to be able to access the media stored *anywhere* in my house. The majority of it is on my desktop, but when someone comes over with a Windows laptop and I want to play a video off it, I'm not going to want to open an SSH window and mount the share! I guess my main point is that not all video you want to play needs to be in your "Personal Media Database" thing, it could be anywhere. This volatile media doesn't need to remain present after it's played. I know this is not really at the core of this discussion but I think it's an important consideration for such an application to be successful. If this is a real Gnome Media Center then Nautilus should be able to provide some assistance here, no? After all, totem and mplayer and xine all support playing directly from smb shares. Martin Meyer On 2/13/07, Alex Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think what is needed here is an (albeit huge) co-ordinated effort into > some kind of GNOME Media system, where a video player (Totem) and a > music jukebox (Rhythmbox) and a media centre (???) can share code, > libraries, UI conventions, and importantly, one database. > > I don't see a lot of point in bouncing along otherwise - I fear the > result will be a half-baked mess with no consistency. > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 19:13 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 17:51 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > > Hi, > > > Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been > > > mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa > > > be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the > > > community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. > > > > > > We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, > > > but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the > > > stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to > > > do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much > > > of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for > > > inspiration. > > > > > > We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, > > > be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be > > > mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media > > > applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media > > > files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. > > > > > that should be the first step. Right now, I have to create separate > > music databases whether I use banshee or rhythmbox (or at least that's > > how it was last times I switched from one to the other). > > > > Also, making this 'database' keep videos, photos, etc, would be a good > > first step. > > > > > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > > > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > > > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. > > > > > > A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the > > > desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu > > > entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. > > > > > for the GNOME interface (to be run on a GNOME desktop), I really think > > this is very much needed. While we, at least myself, are ok with music > > (rhythmbox and banshee are great) and photos (gthumb and f-spot), we > > have nothing similar to this for videos. It would so be really nice to > > have a simple interface to all your music and videos and photos, without > > having to run the full GDM Elisa session. > -- > Alex Jones > http://alex.weej.com/ > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
I think what is needed here is an (albeit huge) co-ordinated effort into some kind of GNOME Media system, where a video player (Totem) and a music jukebox (Rhythmbox) and a media centre (???) can share code, libraries, UI conventions, and importantly, one database. I don't see a lot of point in bouncing along otherwise - I fear the result will be a half-baked mess with no consistency. On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 19:13 +0100, Rodrigo Moya wrote: > On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 17:51 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > > Hi, > > Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been > > mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa > > be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the > > community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. > > > > We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, > > but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the > > stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to > > do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much > > of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for > > inspiration. > > > > We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, > > be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be > > mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media > > applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media > > files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. > > > that should be the first step. Right now, I have to create separate > music databases whether I use banshee or rhythmbox (or at least that's > how it was last times I switched from one to the other). > > Also, making this 'database' keep videos, photos, etc, would be a good > first step. > > > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. > > > > A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the > > desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu > > entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. > > > for the GNOME interface (to be run on a GNOME desktop), I really think > this is very much needed. While we, at least myself, are ok with music > (rhythmbox and banshee are great) and photos (gthumb and f-spot), we > have nothing similar to this for videos. It would so be really nice to > have a simple interface to all your music and videos and photos, without > having to run the full GDM Elisa session. -- Alex Jones http://alex.weej.com/ ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 17:51 +0100, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote: > Hi, > Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been > mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa > be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the > community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. > > We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, > but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the > stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to > do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much > of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for > inspiration. > > We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, > be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be > mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media > applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media > files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. > that should be the first step. Right now, I have to create separate music databases whether I use banshee or rhythmbox (or at least that's how it was last times I switched from one to the other). Also, making this 'database' keep videos, photos, etc, would be a good first step. > I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what > requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center > solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. > > A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the > desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu > entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. > for the GNOME interface (to be run on a GNOME desktop), I really think this is very much needed. While we, at least myself, are ok with music (rhythmbox and banshee are great) and photos (gthumb and f-spot), we have nothing similar to this for videos. It would so be really nice to have a simple interface to all your music and videos and photos, without having to run the full GDM Elisa session. -- Rodrigo Moya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi, Thought someone from Fluendo should chime in on this as Elisa been mentioned. In general we would be interested in having Elisa be the media center add-on to GNOME. So the question is what the community would expect from a 'GNOME media center'. We are already using as mentioned by many gnome related technologies, but since the media center GUI is so different we feel a lot of the stack is not really relevant, the same goes for the HIG. While we try to do intelligent GUI design with Elisa there is IMHO not really that much of the HIG that applies directly, but of course we try to use it for inspiration. We do want to integrate as widely as possible with other applications, be that through upnp a/v and DAAP etc. and I think that it would be mutually beneficial for both Elisa and the rest of the media applications if we managed to create a standard for how to store media files in the form of a certain directory layout and naming and so on. I guess from our point of view we would be interested in hearing what requirements/expectations people have for something like a media center solution to be included as a 'part of GNOME'. A media center interface is in some sense an alternative GUI to the desktop, so my thinking so far is that we should both do a GNOME menu entry for Elisa and a GDM entry to log directly into Elisa. Christian On Sun, 2007-02-11 at 08:58 -0500, Luis Villa wrote: > On 2/11/07, Étienne Bersac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > > It's more usable that your proposal (get someone to start something from > > > scratch) as it exists, so I don't see your point. Elisa has exactly the > > > same goals as the Apple and Microsoft media centres. > > > > Hi, my proposal was just a braindump, useful in case no project were up. > > Since Elisa is on, and pigment seems very nice, my "proposal" worth > > nothing ! However, it seems Elisa is not "Gnome" enough. Is there plan > > to integrate it ? > > There are three ways something can be more gnome-y: > (1) interoperates well with existing GNOME technologies > (2) uses GNOME UI metaphors/HIG. > (3) uses GNOME libraries. > > I'd suggest that (1) is critical for a 'GNOME-y' media center, and > that the other two are at best likely problematic. > > To elaborate a bit on (1): > > What I'd like is that when I get a new laptop and a new media player > box, to download two CDs (ignore the underlying OS for now): one that > is a 'desktop' and the other a 'media center'. When I install the > desktop, I get what we all know and love: something fairly easy to > use, powerful, etc. GNOME 2.x. > > When I install the media center, I want it to immediately interoperate > with that desktop- no setup, no thinking, I want it to Just Fucking > Work. That to me is what I mean to be GNOME-y. > > My f-spot should have 'publish to the TV' option; my rhythmbox should > immediately read music files from the media box, and vice versa; all > my file dialogs should suddenly offer a save location on the media > server (inc. my bittorrent client, which maybe should automatically > offer to save to a video directory?); my ipod plugged into my desktop > should allow me to get music files from my media server (my media > server is under a desk so I can't plug the ipod into it), etc. > Potentially it should offer to be the automatic backup server for my > regular desktop files, since presumably my media box has tons of free > space. (In my dream world, my N800 also immediately does smart > things.) > > To me, that level of automatic, seamless interoperation with existing > GNOME apps is what it means for a media center to be 'GNOME-y'. Note > that in many cases this probably means hacking on the desktop apps as > well, but such is life- we can't just expect to have a good user > experience by hacking on one code base. > > There may be some (3): > * muine does a great job thinking about albums and album covers; elisa > currently does not do that as far as I can tell. Sharing that code > (instead of reinventing that wheel) would be great. > * elisa already does use pango, I believe? (maybe I'm confusing it > with opened-hand's clutter?)(I see that it uses cairo through > 'pigment'; I'm sort of surprised that pigment and clutter seem to be > substantially overlapping.) > > Hard to see (2): > * radically different resolutions and font needs, not to mention > wanting more visually pleasing (aka non-gtk themed) UI > * not wanting file/edit/view menus everywhere; heirarchical menus > being crappy, etc. > > I do agree that it is *critical* that we have a GNOME-y media center > like this- Apple is going to do this with their Apple TV; Microsoft is > doing this with XBox. We must push forward and innovate in this space > if we want to remain interesting/relevant in home spaces in the > future. But we shouldn't hobble it by being any more 'GNOME-y' than > good, seamless integration requires. > > Luis > ___ > desktop-devel-list m
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On 2/11/07, Étienne Bersac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > > It's more usable that your proposal (get someone to start something from > > scratch) as it exists, so I don't see your point. Elisa has exactly the > > same goals as the Apple and Microsoft media centres. > > Hi, my proposal was just a braindump, useful in case no project were up. > Since Elisa is on, and pigment seems very nice, my "proposal" worth > nothing ! However, it seems Elisa is not "Gnome" enough. Is there plan > to integrate it ? There are three ways something can be more gnome-y: (1) interoperates well with existing GNOME technologies (2) uses GNOME UI metaphors/HIG. (3) uses GNOME libraries. I'd suggest that (1) is critical for a 'GNOME-y' media center, and that the other two are at best likely problematic. To elaborate a bit on (1): What I'd like is that when I get a new laptop and a new media player box, to download two CDs (ignore the underlying OS for now): one that is a 'desktop' and the other a 'media center'. When I install the desktop, I get what we all know and love: something fairly easy to use, powerful, etc. GNOME 2.x. When I install the media center, I want it to immediately interoperate with that desktop- no setup, no thinking, I want it to Just Fucking Work. That to me is what I mean to be GNOME-y. My f-spot should have 'publish to the TV' option; my rhythmbox should immediately read music files from the media box, and vice versa; all my file dialogs should suddenly offer a save location on the media server (inc. my bittorrent client, which maybe should automatically offer to save to a video directory?); my ipod plugged into my desktop should allow me to get music files from my media server (my media server is under a desk so I can't plug the ipod into it), etc. Potentially it should offer to be the automatic backup server for my regular desktop files, since presumably my media box has tons of free space. (In my dream world, my N800 also immediately does smart things.) To me, that level of automatic, seamless interoperation with existing GNOME apps is what it means for a media center to be 'GNOME-y'. Note that in many cases this probably means hacking on the desktop apps as well, but such is life- we can't just expect to have a good user experience by hacking on one code base. There may be some (3): * muine does a great job thinking about albums and album covers; elisa currently does not do that as far as I can tell. Sharing that code (instead of reinventing that wheel) would be great. * elisa already does use pango, I believe? (maybe I'm confusing it with opened-hand's clutter?)(I see that it uses cairo through 'pigment'; I'm sort of surprised that pigment and clutter seem to be substantially overlapping.) Hard to see (2): * radically different resolutions and font needs, not to mention wanting more visually pleasing (aka non-gtk themed) UI * not wanting file/edit/view menus everywhere; heirarchical menus being crappy, etc. I do agree that it is *critical* that we have a GNOME-y media center like this- Apple is going to do this with their Apple TV; Microsoft is doing this with XBox. We must push forward and innovate in this space if we want to remain interesting/relevant in home spaces in the future. But we shouldn't hobble it by being any more 'GNOME-y' than good, seamless integration requires. Luis ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi, > It's more usable that your proposal (get someone to start something from > scratch) as it exists, so I don't see your point. Elisa has exactly the > same goals as the Apple and Microsoft media centres. Hi, my proposal was just a braindump, useful in case no project were up. Since Elisa is on, and pigment seems very nice, my "proposal" worth nothing ! However, it seems Elisa is not "Gnome" enough. Is there plan to integrate it ? Étienne. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
On Sun, 2007-02-11 at 11:23 +0100, Étienne Bersac wrote: > > You may be interested in the Elisa media centre project: > > http://www.fluendo.com/elisa/ > > Thanks ! That's exactly what i was looking for. However, that's not very > usable yet. It's more usable that your proposal (get someone to start something from scratch) as it exists, so I don't see your point. Elisa has exactly the same goals as the Apple and Microsoft media centres. Ross -- Ross Burton mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www: http://www.burtonini.com./ PGP Fingerprint: 1A21 F5B0 D8D0 CFE3 81D4 E25A 2D09 E447 D0B4 33DF signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi, > You may be interested in the Elisa media centre project: > http://www.fluendo.com/elisa/ Thanks ! That's exactly what i was looking for. However, that's not very usable yet. Étienne. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
2007/2/11, Étienne Bersac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > F-spot handle a photos library, but is that part of Gnome (and C# apps > are not wellcome). That's old news, Gtk# is a supported language binding: http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen/Bindings and Tomboy (a C# application) is part of the Desktop release: http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen/Desktop -- Kalle Vahlman, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Powered by http://movial.fi Interesting stuff at http://syslog.movial.fi ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Call for a Gnome Media Center
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hello, You may be interested in the Elisa media centre project: http://www.fluendo.com/elisa/ I've never tried it personally. I don't have a suitable machine to run a media centre on. The technologies it uses (GStreamer, OpenGL, Python) make it look rather exciting, though. Regards, - -- Stéphan Étienne Bersac schreef: > Hi all, > > With the integration of Gnome media shortcut in Totem and Rhythmbox and > appleir driver for Apple Remote, i was able to play with Apple Remote > and rhythmbox. > > However, Gnome does not have a kind of media center. What do you think > about such software ? > > Gstreamer going mature, it would be very nice to provide a nice > fullscreen app allowing to handle remotly music, video, photo, dvd, > podcast, etc. The problem is : where are the basis for accessing such > media ? We can only rely to rhythmbox to handle music and podcast. > F-spot handle a photos library, but is that part of Gnome (and C# apps > are not wellcome). Neither Rhythmbox nor totem handles video collection. > DVD is handled by users, that's not a matter. > > That would be a nice Google SoC :) > > Please comment, > Étienne. > > ___ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFzlp+cFUq0gzqDwQRAn3SAJ4sWryR0fyssDhRKyoV8Ve4O6nzFgCfTC7K p4eCPtiliEVEHLYRhQfa01k= =eMD0 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
[Fwd: Call for a Gnome Media Center]
I totally agree. it would be a great next step in the gnome desktop. I could even see a wonderful framework that would be simple to settup and use with a remote. Mythbox and other devices are for, in my opinion, single purpose systems. Not to mention over bloated. Jason Brower Forwarded Message From: Étienne Bersac <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: desktop-devel-list Subject: Call for a Gnome Media Center Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:22:32 +0100 Hi all, With the integration of Gnome media shortcut in Totem and Rhythmbox and appleir driver for Apple Remote, i was able to play with Apple Remote and rhythmbox. However, Gnome does not have a kind of media center. What do you think about such software ? Gstreamer going mature, it would be very nice to provide a nice fullscreen app allowing to handle remotly music, video, photo, dvd, podcast, etc. The problem is : where are the basis for accessing such media ? We can only rely to rhythmbox to handle music and podcast. F-spot handle a photos library, but is that part of Gnome (and C# apps are not wellcome). Neither Rhythmbox nor totem handles video collection. DVD is handled by users, that's not a matter. That would be a nice Google SoC :) Please comment, Étienne. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Call for a Gnome Media Center
Hi all, With the integration of Gnome media shortcut in Totem and Rhythmbox and appleir driver for Apple Remote, i was able to play with Apple Remote and rhythmbox. However, Gnome does not have a kind of media center. What do you think about such software ? Gstreamer going mature, it would be very nice to provide a nice fullscreen app allowing to handle remotly music, video, photo, dvd, podcast, etc. The problem is : where are the basis for accessing such media ? We can only rely to rhythmbox to handle music and podcast. F-spot handle a photos library, but is that part of Gnome (and C# apps are not wellcome). Neither Rhythmbox nor totem handles video collection. DVD is handled by users, that's not a matter. That would be a nice Google SoC :) Please comment, Étienne. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
