nautilus file preview does not respect file size limit

[Victor Zamanian]

Binary package hint: nautilus

Nautilus displays thumbnails regardless of file-size limit set in nautilus' preferences. The setting above it (show always/never/for local files only) does work; it is only the file-size limit that isn't respected.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04

$ aptitude show nautilus | grep Version
Version: 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1.1

What I expect to happen: nautilus respecting setting for thumbnail file-size limit.

What happens instead: nautilus does not respect setting for thumbnail file-size limit.

[Victor Zamanian (victorz)]

I have discovered that the behavior of this bug is slightly different than I wrote in the description. This I realized after messing around with nautilus' settings just a few minutes ago.

The file size limit IS respected after all. The problem is the _wording_ of the setting in the preferences dialog: The setting seems to govern whether thumbnails are _generated_ or not. If they have already been generated for a file, and the file size limit is set to a lower value, the thumbnail will still show. Since the thumbnail is already generated, there is no extra processing necessary, which explains the behavior. Files which have not had their thumbnail generated will not be available for preview (i.e. there is no thumbnail for them).

The setting is phrased as "Show thumbnails:", which makes the behavior incorrect. The setting should maybe be worded using the word "generated" instead.

NOTE: I have not experimented any with how sound files are previewed for different values of this setting.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

from nautilus developers
"This is intentional, because creating a preview for a video file some GB large is not more expensive than creating one for a 1MB video. This is also true for e.g. PDF files, but not for e.g. pictures, which is why we have that preference."

[Victor Zamanian (victorz)]

Omer, what? What is "This" in that quote? I cannot make sense of that quote in this context.

The wording of the setting is wrong. Are you saying that nautilus developers say that wording something wrong is intentional because video files of gigabytes and a few megabytes are about as expensive as one another, but not pictures? Please, I would appreciate a lot some explanation for what you mean and what makes this invalid.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

you can see their comment by opening the upstream link attached to this bug.

On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Victor Zamanian
<email address hidden>wrote:

> Omer, what? What is "This" in that quote? I cannot make sense of that
> quote in this context.
>
> The wording of the setting is wrong. Are you saying that nautilus
> developers say that wording something wrong is intentional because video
> files of gigabytes and a few megabytes are about as expensive as one
> another, but not pictures? Please, I would appreciate a lot some
> explanation for what you mean and what makes this invalid.
>
> --
> nautilus file preview does not respect file size limit
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/640785
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to
> nautilus in ubuntu.
>
> Status in Nautilus: Invalid
> Status in “nautilus” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: nautilus
>
> Nautilus displays thumbnails regardless of file-size limit set in nautilus'
> preferences. The setting above it (show always/never/for local files only)
> does work; it is only the file-size limit that isn't respected.
>
> $ lsb_release -rd
> Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
> Release: 10.04
>
> $ aptitude show nautilus | grep Version
> Version: 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1.1
>
> What I expect to happen: nautilus respecting setting for thumbnail
> file-size limit.
>
> What happens instead: nautilus does not respect setting for thumbnail
> file-size limit.
>
>
>

[Victor Zamanian (victorz)]

Ah I see, thanks! I shall then soon open a bug mentioning that the preferences dialog is not open with its inconsistency, i.e. not mentioning that this will have no effect on videos and whatever other type of files.

[Dmitry Kann (yktooo)]

I reopen the bug. It is actually the case Nautilus GENERATES thumbnails disregarding of the setting. It's especially annoying when it happens while eg. downloading the file: it re-reads it numerous times and wastes system resources.

Please see the attached screenshot: everything is very clear.

The setting's value has been there for ages. Still the previews are generated and regenerated on file change.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

upstream agrees the wording is suboptimal but it says it's not a bug in the feature, closing the bug