GSOC contribution summary
Secure .desktop handling (Thunar !117, !121, Exo !44, Libxfce4util !16)
.desktop file is a special kind of script that is optimized for launching application. It can use custom icon and name to represent application. However, this feature can be abused as it can disguise it as any type of file. To prevent this security breach, I introduced a “trused” flag to mark whether this .desktop file is safe to execute. By utilizing GVFS-metadata, there is no way that the flag of any downloaded file. A user will be warned about the safety hazard until the user sets “trusted” flag up.
File copy improvements
Implement queued transfer management (Thunar !116)
Sequential transfer, which is introduced in 4.16, caused freuqent freeze and/or crash. Now sequential transfer is handled by a queue, and now this feature works without a problem.
Keep modified time for the file copied from foreign location (Thunar !127)
When copying from remote locations, all the metadata gets lost. The original plan was to use g_file_build_attribute_list_for_copy() to overwrite metadata of the copied file, but for now, it only copies modified time of the original file.
Use “copy name” when copying from gvfs-google backend (Thunar !121)
When copying a file from gvfs-google (google-drive:// protocol), the filename was replaced with unreadable number-alphabet combination. Now the filename is maintained without a problem.
Use intermediate file to copy files (!130)
When a file transfer gets interrupted for any reason, the file that is not fully transferred is left on the destination. Since that the single file on the destination is guaranteed to be corrupted, a user cannot just retry copying the same file on the destination and skip duplicate files. To solve this problem, Thunar will try to delete the incomplete file if it can. In case the destination is not accessible at the time, there is a safer option that first copies a file with a different name than the original and then change the name of the copied file to its original.
Fix invalid filenames when copying to FAT-like filesystem (!137, !138)
FAT and NTFS have a stricter naming rule than EXT filesystem. Also, Windows has a reserved word for filename. For this reason, when copying a file to FAT-like system, Thunar will automatically rename to avoid illegal names before copy.
Check if a target directory is a subdirectory of the moved folder (!139)
Now Thunar will check if a target directory is a subdirectory of the moved folder before trying to copy files.
Implement “safe copy” (!144)
New option “safe copy” will compare checksum of the original and the copy if enabled. This will largely increase copy time, but it would be useful if the source location or the destination is unreliable.
Miscellaneous
For directories, leave size column blank (Thunar !83)
For some reason, Thunar has shown a block size of the filesystem as the “file size” of the directory. This value might be confusing to a user, so now the file size is only shown for regular files.
On “Select by Pattern” add option for case sensitivity (Thunar !89, !98)
“Select by Pattern” feature was not case sensitive, so now case insensitive select is introduced and set as a default.
Improve computer:// panel (Thunar !92)
Detail view for computer:// was incomplete since it cannot be handled like a normal directory. Now “size” column shows disk usage info, and “type” column shows a device type.
Deprecate ExoBinding (Exo !42, ThunarMediaTagsPlugin !4, Xfce4PlacesPlugin !7, Thunar !113, ThunarVolman !8)
Since ExoBinding in Exo can be replaced with GBinding in GLib, ExoBinding is deprecated and the usage within XFCE project is replaced with GBinding.
Preserve metadata when editing desktop item (Exo !43)
When editing a desktop item with exo-desktop-item-edit, all the metadata got lost since the modified file was actually a new file that replaces older one. This problem is fixed and the file modified maintains its info.
A journey comes to an end
A journey comes to an endAs this year's Google Summer of Code comes to a close, so does this series of blogposts. Since this is my last post related to GSoC I have decided to summarize my contributions to Xfce and give you a glimpse of what I'll be working on in the foreseeable future. If you have read my previous posts, you can skip right to the end since you have already read most of the stuff that I'm going to write.
What has been done
My project's goal was to improve various aspects of Thunar, dealing with several important deficiencies that existed. In the roughly two and a half months that my work lasted I made the following contributions:
- Add zoom-level as a per-directory setting MR, giving users the ability to have the zoom-levels of their directories restored upon opening them.
- Support for GTK-Recent MR, adding support for the `recent:///` location, and all that this entails.
- Provide additional menu item for trashed files: "restore and open folder" MR, giving users the option to immediately open the location of files restored from the Trash folder.
- Add a preference to restore tabs on startup MR, or as it is known in other programs a preference to 'restore the last session'.
- Support shared thumbnail repositories MR, making Thunar one of the relatively few programs that support the #SHARED part of the freedesktop.org thumbnail spec. For more info about what this I've uploaded a video in a previous blogpost.
- Search improvements for Thunar MR, which completely reworks Thunar's search functionality and makes Catfish easily accessible from Thunar.
- Some bugfixes and minor additions.
I've also made minor improvements to the `Renamer` as well as dealing with various small bugs or missing features of Thunar.
The future
Google Summer of Code might be ending, but my job isn't done. I will continue working on adding a decent recursive-search. A lot of progress has been made on that front, but the performance isn't quite there yet. Besides that, I want to give Thunar users an option to easily create Shared Thumbnail Repositories which is something that I will probably do through a new plugin.
Acknowledgements
All in all, I've had a great deal of fun and I'm very much looking forward to continue working with the Xfce community on improving the Xfce Desktop Environment. I want to thank my mentor Alexander Schwinn (@alexxcons) for his continuous support and exceptional mentoring, as well as his calm and motivational attitude. I also want to thank Yousuf Philips (@philipz) for promoting all of our work, posts and videos and being a really friendly and kind person to talk to (which was especially great when I first came in contact with the Xfce community).
Link to all my Thunar Merge Requests: link
Previous post
Search improvements
Search improvementsWelcome back. This is my last (or second to last) blog post for this year's Google Summer of Code with Xfce and Thunar. Unlike previous weeks this time I have only one new thing to talk to you about. Searching in Thunar.
Most of you might have noticed that Thunar has had a significnt deficiency for a while. Thunar has been missing a decent solution for searching for files in the filesystem. Users could search for files in the selected directory, but even that was a pretty mediocre experience, because results weren't being filtered while searching. Fortunately there is another program under the Xfce umbrella that makes searching for files a breeze. That program is, of course, Catfish. Unfortunately this status quo requires users to juggle between Thunar and Catfish even when searching for simple things.
In the past two weeks I've been working on two things. First, making Catfish easier to use through Thunar. Second improving Thunar's built-in search features to make routine and/or simple searches possible without leaving Thunar. The first improvement is pretty straightforward. A new button has been added that allows the user to open catfish with the specified search query from inside Thunar. As far as the improving the built-in search features goes, I've implemented a basic depth-limited recursive search in Thunar that is accessed from the location bar, which can now be used as both a location bar and a search bar. As the user types his/her search query the view is updated with the results. For convenience in addition to the current directory and its subdirectories, Thunar searches the GTK-Recent database for eligible entries.
Instead of describing how all this works I would like to demonstrate state of things to you. Some small things are missing (like options for selecting whether the GTK-Recent database should be searched and a new `location` column that will be introduced), but the core functionality has been implemented and is close to being merged.
Link to all my Merge Requests: link
Previous post