Bug 297219 - Places pane shows all unmounted nfs mounts from /etc/fstab, which could be a very very long list
Summary: Places pane shows all unmounted nfs mounts from /etc/fstab, which could be a ...
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Alias: None
Product: frameworks-kio
Classification: Frameworks and Libraries
Component: Places (show other bugs)
Version: 5.48.0
Platform: openSUSE Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: David Faure
URL:
Keywords: usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-04-01 03:05 UTC by Felix Miata
Modified: 2019-02-20 22:10 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
132 DPI KF5.8 picker screenshot on Fedora (33.85 KB, image/jpeg)
2015-03-25 01:07 UTC, Felix Miata
Details
Best file picker I've ever encountered, X-File 1.4, for OS/2 by Michael Shillingford, over 2 decades ago. (13.51 KB, image/png)
2018-04-10 00:26 UTC, Felix Miata
Details
(host big41) 144 DPI screenshot on Fedora 28 freshly updated. (257.72 KB, image/png)
2018-07-17 02:28 UTC, Felix Miata
Details

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Description Felix Miata 2012-04-01 03:05:48 UTC
This sprung from bug 283366 where screenshot https://bugs.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=70044 shows a very long scroll in the (KSnapshot) default left pane in the default size picker window in 4.8.1 (from build service repo) on openSUSE 12.1.

The picker needs to apply more intelligence in choosing what to put in the places pane, such as looking at mtab and fstab for correlation and omitting empty mount points for noauto fstab entries. In the screenshot can be seen a portion of the 113 noauto NFS and CIFS fstab entries on that system. Normally the vast majority (as few as 0) of those are unavailable at any given time, and so should not obfuscate usable pane items by the long scroll through highly similar entries.

also sprung from bug 283366 and possibly related for purposes of fixing: bug 297217
Comment 1 Stefan Brüns 2012-11-18 15:46:23 UTC
These mount points are available as clicking on the icon will mount the share, they are just currently not accessible.

For most users, this is a usefull feature.

Can you just once give a reason why you have such a huge amount of shares declared, if these are not available anyway?

Unmounted is not a predicate which is useful for filtering. Availability of the host might be, but this is costly (network roundtrips) and unreliable (ICMP request? might be blocked ...)
Comment 2 Felix Miata 2012-11-19 04:02:46 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Can you just once give a reason why you have such a huge amount of shares
> declared, if these are not available anyway?
 
The number available at any point in time is related to the availability of booted machines, the total of which numbers more than 30, and most of which have exactly the same Samba share and NFS export names (other than the hosthame portions). Each Linux boot represents approximately 9 Samba/CIFS shares and 4-5 NFS shares. Each OS/2 has 4-6 LANMAN. Each Windows has usually at least 3 Samba/CIFS, typically 4. Mac I don't do often enough to bother with preconfiguring fstabs for.  If the network has 3 Linux booted, 1 OS/2 booted and 1 Windows booted, then the available share count is more than 20, not counting those from each host itself. With 4 Linux, 1 OS/2 and 0 Window, which is more common, the count is more like 25. Which combination of machines booted at any given time widely fluctuates. To get consistent behavior on Linux, at each installation I copy the shares portions of fstab from another partition or machine to the new installation's fstab, and to mount any machine's shares I need only remember the hosthame whose shares I want or need access to. 8 machines at once is my physical limit. More than 5 at once is unusual.

Most file accesses among machines are done one of four ways (in order of decreasing frequency):

1-MC, FC/2, FC/Linux or another OFM, more often running on a TTY than in X
2a-opening a video file with SMPlayer or VLC
2b-opening a file with a web browser (most often non-local)
2c-KSnapshot saves, nearly always to an NFS mount

I don't use any GUI file managers except occasionally in Windows or Mac, both of which I boot very little.
Comment 3 Felix Miata 2013-11-13 23:36:25 UTC
FWIW, Dolphin behaves poorly in the same manner.
Comment 4 Felix Miata 2015-03-25 01:07:01 UTC
Created attachment 91724 [details]
132 DPI KF5.8 picker screenshot on Fedora

No improvement, aka still a problem. The least that could be done is provide a sort mechanism, if not an automatic alpha sort, so that at least the name of known currently available shares could be found without reading each line in a lengthy select list that falls far short of utilizing available space well.
Comment 5 Felix Miata 2015-04-12 19:39:37 UTC
Just as bad as ever in Tumbleweed on 64bit host gx745. No "kfile" rpm is installed. file- and file-magic- are at 5.22-1.2. kfilemetatdata5 is at 5.6.2-2.1.
Comment 6 Stefan Brüns 2018-04-09 23:22:36 UTC
(In reply to Felix Miata from comment #5)
> Just as bad as ever in Tumbleweed on 64bit host gx745. No "kfile" rpm is
> installed. file- and file-magic- are at 5.22-1.2. kfilemetatdata5 is at
> 5.6.2-2.1.

you can hide any share you do not want to show up by adding:
x-gvfs-hide
to its options field.

See https://git.gnome.org/browse/gvfs/plain/monitor/udisks2/what-is-shown.txt
Comment 7 Nate Graham 2018-04-09 23:24:17 UTC
That isn't very helpful when there are dozens or hundreds. Also, that's a fix that's only suitable for experts. This is an opportunity for a better UI more generally.
Comment 8 Stefan Brüns 2018-04-09 23:38:40 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #7)
> That isn't very helpful when there are dozens or hundreds. Also, that's a
> fix that's only suitable for experts. This is an opportunity for a better UI
> more generally.

So, who created fstabs with hundreds of network share entries but experts?
Comment 9 Felix Miata 2018-04-10 00:26:02 UTC
Created attachment 111932 [details]
Best file picker I've ever encountered, X-File 1.4, for OS/2 by Michael Shillingford, over 2 decades ago.

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #7)
> That isn't very helpful when there are dozens or hundreds...This is an opportunity for a better UI
> more generally.

Absolutely.

(In reply to Stefan Brüns from comment #6)
> you can hide any share you do not want to show up by adding:
> x-gvfs-hide
> to its options field.

Linux distros are not just multitasking. They're also multiuser. Deselecting, or reenabling, a single share at a time that is absent or not in random fashion in no way resembles an acceptable solution.
Comment 10 Stefan Brüns 2018-04-10 00:31:59 UTC
(In reply to Felix Miata from comment #9)
> Created attachment 111932 [details]
> Best file picker I've ever encountered, X-File 1.4, for OS/2 by Michael
> Shillingford, over 2 decades ago.

So, how does that integrate networks shares? Not at all, I would guess ...
Comment 11 Felix Miata 2018-04-10 00:45:44 UTC
(In reply to Stefan Brüns from comment #10)
> So, how does that integrate networks shares? Not at all, I would guess ...

Select required directory if and when needed, either from navigating DIR pane, or using Freq DIR or DIR History if applicable.
Comment 12 Nate Graham 2018-06-28 22:26:18 UTC
Is this still an issue with KDE Frameworks 5.47 and Dolphin 18.04.x?
Comment 13 Felix Miata 2018-07-17 02:28:59 UTC
Created attachment 113980 [details]
(host big41) 144 DPI screenshot on Fedora 28 freshly updated.

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #12)
> Is this still an issue with KDE Frameworks 5.47 and Dolphin 18.04.x?

It's quite poor in 5.47 in the filepicker that opens from Spectacle. Here the picker opened about the same size (exactly?) as the fonts window. I pulled the lower right corner down and right, and the left pane remained horribly narrow, filling with what shows as identical NFS entries for each potential yet not active mount from fstab. Selecting any of the not mounted items produces no change in the right hand pane, where I would expect the pane to be cleared or a message about emptiness appear. There's no way to tell which if any have content except by selecting each and waiting to see if the right pane populates.

Comment 3 is probably a result of the only time I ever purposely opened Dolphin. I'm an OFM user. Just moments ago Dolphin didn't open when I tried.
Comment 14 Nate Graham 2018-07-17 04:15:22 UTC
I'll take that as a yes, then. :)
Comment 15 Stefan Brüns 2019-02-05 18:28:15 UTC
(In reply to Felix Miata from comment #11)
> (In reply to Stefan Brüns from comment #10)
> > So, how does that integrate networks shares? Not at all, I would guess ...
> 
> Select required directory if and when needed, either from navigating DIR
> pane, or using Freq DIR or DIR History if applicable.

You get *exactly* the same level of integration when you add x-gvfs-hide to the fstab. You can still access any share via the directory tree.
Comment 16 Stefan Brüns 2019-02-20 18:34:47 UTC
As Felix failed to give a reason why he can not add a "x-gvfs-hide" to his manually created fstab, hiding the entries from the places plane, but still allowing to access the shares from the regular directory tree, I am closing this.
Comment 17 Felix Miata 2019-02-20 20:41:10 UTC
This bug lays fallow for 6 years, and then because I don't have time to respond within three weeks you close it? I don't know what x-gvfs-hide is. And, this is not about one user - it's about over a hundred users across at least 60 installations.
Comment 18 Stefan Brüns 2019-02-20 22:10:32 UTC
I mentioned x-gvfs-hide 10 months ago, including a link. If you ignore it, that's your fault.