When we first started Shotwell, we avoided symlinks because they open up a number of issues we preferred not have to face up front, such as broken links, directory loops, and who knows what else. Over time we added some support: the auto-import and directory monitoring features do support symlinks for directories (for some specific use cases we felt we needed to support), but not with files themselves.
We have a ticket to support symlinks completely: http://redmine.yorba.org/issues/2983 I don't know that we would want to install FileMonitors for each linked file, however, since there is a hard limit each process can create. The general strategy we've used in directory monitoring is to install a single directory monitor and watch the files it contains. -- Jim On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 6:11 AM, Ethan <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 6:05 AM, oliver <[email protected]> wrote: > > > a while ago I talked about using symbolic links. > > But I was not accurate enough in picking the terms. > > I later explained it: "symbolic links" was not meant > > as symbolic links on the filesystem level, which is > > what symbolic links are. > > > > Let me clarify. What I want *is* support for symbolic links on the > filesystem level. I'm experimenting with using git-annex to store my > picture files, so my picture library consists of symlinks to pictures. The > symlinks have appropriate names like "dscn8517.jpg", and they link to files > like > > ".git/annex/objects/8x/k7/WORM-s1985206-m1306675740--dscn8517.jpg/WORM-s1985206-m1306675740--dscn8517.jpg". > > I'd like these files to be recognized at all when I start shotwell. If the > links are broken, I'm OK with them being marked as "missing". In a perfect > world, if they got shuffled around, I would like them to not be re-imported > as duplicates. > > Shotwell currently explicitly doesn't support symbolic links as "images" > (see BatchImport.vala:1444 and DirectoryMonitor.vala:69). I can understand > that it might be complicated to figure out how to treat them; what happens > if a symlink changes target? If a symlink is updated, does this mean it > needs to be rescanned? In my use case I don't care too much about these > questions, but recognizing the files at all would be an important step. > Advice on how to go about implementing this would therefore be appreciated. > I think I can just add cases to both of the above files for symlinks that > provide file metainformation from the linked file and add a FileMonitor on > the linked file (as well as the symlink?) but I haven't actually written > any > code yet. > > Ethan > _______________________________________________ > Shotwell mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.yorba.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/shotwell > _______________________________________________ Shotwell mailing list [email protected] http://lists.yorba.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/shotwell
