On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 13:16 +0200, Christian Neumair wrote: > Am Freitag, den 05.08.2005, 15:44 -0700 schrieb Karim Nassar: > > I have really really wanted a synchronizer program for about 3 years. > > Well, starting in mid September I have about 20 hrs per week to dedicate > > to programming this. Anyone know of any similar projects in this area? I > > am not up to speed with the latest Nautilus, but it could very well be > > fabulous if tightly integrated there. > > Before starting to write external programs, we should really try to get > this functionality into Nautilus. > > In general, we have two ways of dealing with conflicts > a) "collect" all conflicts and - after copying the rest of the files - > provide an UI for resolving them [1] > b) stop at the first conflict, but offer an UI for setting how to deal > with this and future conflicts
I think that there is a desire for a "heavyweight" synchronizing program as well as your desire for Nautilus functionality. I imagine something multi-platform. As such, a syncing lib would provide an programming interface to: * use available backends to do the sync (rsync, cp, mv, etc) * support checking for conflicts (non-existent that I know of) * support some sort of versioning (cvs, arch, svn, etc) <Back to UI> In the case currently under discussion (copy/move conflicts), we want to incorporate some super slick, tightly integrated interface to Nautilus, which, if I get my way, would use the aforementioned libs, which I am offering to code. I really liked Matthews suggestion of a simple interface, combined with all the other suggested details listings, allowing spawning of a synchronizer: +---------------------------------------------------+ | This action will overwrite files <at destination> | | | | > Details | | | | +-------------+ +--------+ +-----------+ | | | Synchronize | | Cancel | | Overwrite | | | +-------------+ +--------+ +-----------+ | +---------------------------------------------------+ "Details" would have a listing based on suggestions from previous posters. The idea here is that "Details" allows one to (not) include each individual conflict. "Synchronize" *would* be heavyweight, outside of Nautilus, and have a robust interface specifically designed for that task. I am arguing that the case we are discussing either can be simply handled (a few same names, a few newer files will be stomped) or requires a robust interface beyond the scope of Nautilus (lots of problems, different sizes, conflicting versions, etc). My suggestion meets your desire of tight integration, and my desire to have a heavyweight program that can serve other purposes than just conflict resolution: specifically, backups and bookmarks/desktop configuration synchronizing. PS: If we can check the conflicts ahead of time, that would be optimal, but my interface suggestion does not require it. I have often been highly annoyed at programs that don't at least multitask and copy/move that which is "safe" and ask about the problems at the end. Cheers, -- Karim Nassar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
