New files in the monitored folder don't compare in the list

[Kill KRT]

I have enabled the directory monitoring on a folder of mounted NTFS partition.
I have copied a lot of new jpeg in that folder, but when I checked the wallpapers list they don't compare, even if I restart the application.

[Tested on ver 0.5.1 on Ubuntu Feisty]

[Milosz Tanski (mtanski)]

Well directory monitoring is only for new files put in the directory when the application is running. That's how (inotify) the FileSystemWatcher class works. Right now there is no support for scanning the directory for new wallpapers add when drapes wasn't running. Also, for all the current ntfs solutions (ntfs 3g, ntfs ro) I don't belive inotify works with those.

[Miguel Pires da Rosa (miguelpires)]

Couldn't there be a function in Drapes to check for new files in the monitored folder that would automatically be executed 60 seconds after Drapes starts up? I know it's more overhead than just using inotify but it would be more consistent as to the whole contents of the directory.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Desktop Drapes because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Nick Steeves (nick-0)]

Here's a solution that solves both cases. Case 1: a wallpaper is added to the watched directory when Drapes isn't running, so Drapes doesn't know about it when it is. Case 2: the wallpaper folder is on a partition which doesn't support inotify. Whether or not this is NTFS specific is spurious, as there are users which have their wallpaper directories on NFS or SAMBA mounted partitions.

Current action: Browse to, and re-add the directory.
Proposed solution: Add a button in the "Wallpaper search directory" which says something like "Scan now".
The function with which the button is associated can be like this:

I. I assume that the "add directory" function in the Display -> Add section of the program is in fact a function, and also that this function takes a directory location as an argument.
II. The "Scan now" function first
         1. gets the value of the monitored directory;
         2. offers this location as an argument to the "add directory function"
         3. either context switches back to the general tab, or offers some kind of popup to tell the user not to panic.

Milosz, how does this sound to you? It allows one to avoid having to restart Drapes after adding new wallpapers to a mount of a type not supported by inotify without slowing down the startup of the application. As I see it, the cons are: this behavior is different from the way Rhymthbox handles a watched directory...I'm not sure if it violates any HIG rules or GNOME conventions either, but I think that a one-button re-scan solution seems to be fairly reasonable.

[Nick Steeves (nick-0)]

Has there been any progress with this?

[Dick Thomas (xpd259-deactivatedaccount)]

I have this problem also
of it not finding new or existing files in my wallpaper dir

I'm using ext3

in debug all i get is even after a full day and many images added of jpg, jpeg & png formats

xpd259@juno:~$ drapes --debug
** Running drapes in Debug Mode **
Running with extra debug output
Opening wallpaper list: /home/xpd259/.gnome2/drapes.xml
Filesystem monitor on: /home/xpd259/Photos/WallPapers enabled

[Serrano Pereira (serrano-pereira)]

I'm in the same situation as Dick. I added an empty folder (on the ext3 filesystem) to the "Wallpaper search directory". Then added a bunch of wallpapers to the directory. But Drapes doesn't see them. Right now this application is useless to me because it can't find the image files.

[Lane Bryson (lane-bryson)]

confirmed for 10.04 x64, with this setup. No error message give, as indicated below, even though I have a local, ext3 directory in my home-dir, that is not read.

Package: drapes
Priority: optional
Section: universe/gnome
Installed-Size: 2332
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <email address hidden>
Original-Maintainer: Francesco Namuri <email address hidden>
Architecture: all
Version: 0.5.2-3.2
Depends: mono-runtime (>= 1.1.8.1), libc6 (>= 2.10) | libc6.1 (>= 2.10) | libc0.1 (>= 2.10), libgconf2.0-cil (>= 2.24.0), libglade2.0-cil (>= 2.12.9), libglib2.0-cil (>= 2.12.9), libgnome-vfs2.0-cil (>= 2.24.0), libgnome2.24-cil (>= 2.24.0), libgnomepanel2.24-cil (>= 2.26.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.19.4), libgtk2.0-cil (>= 2.12.9), libmono-corlib2.0-cil (>= 1.2.2.1), libmono-posix2.0-cil (>= 2.4), libmono-system2.0-cil (>= 2.4.3), libx11-6, gconf2 (>= 2.10.1-2)
Suggests: mono
Filename: pool/universe/d/drapes/drapes_0.5.2-3.2_all.deb
Size: 182464
MD5sum: 58b313c4bbb2d133d33082afaf8eefe6
SHA1: 6e3a69cc2520a63a064d33865d122d3acb21f079
SHA256: a1d50331cbd57988feadaa10c0b1ad7b39a838cb4d3c532705bcd62af9bcaff8
Description: a desktop wallpaper management application for the GNOME desktop
 The aim of drapes is to complete (or replace) the built-in GNOME desktop
 wallpapers selection tool. It can be configured as a tray application or as a
 panel applet. The bigest selling point of drapes is the ability to rotate
 wallpapers on a timely basis. It strives to be as simple as possible and
 fits in the rest of the GNOME 2 desktop.
Homepage: http://drapes.mindtouchsoftware.come/
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu

foo@pcfoo1:~$ drapes --debug
** Running drapes in Debug Mode **
Running with extra debug output
Opening wallpaper list: /home/foo/.gnome2/drapes.xml
Filesystem monitor on: /home/foo/Pictures/wallpapers enabled
Wallpaper switch to: /usr/share/backgrounds/cosmos/background-1.xml
Wallpaper switch to: /home/foo/Pictures/DSCN2403.JPG
Wallpaper switch to: /home/foo/Pictures/wallpapers/DSCN2385.JPG
Wallpaper switch to: /usr/share/backgrounds/cosmos/background-1.xml
Wallpaper switch to: /home/foo/Pictures/DSCN2403.JPG
Wallpaper switch to: /home/foo/Pictures/wallpapers/DSCN2385.JPG

alarming for what looks like such a basic issue to have been around for so long. Are Canonical's resources so short, or do they just not care? (I have a lot of issues with this distro, most of which are 3 years old.)

[Lane Bryson (lane-bryson)]

...in my last comment, I should note that this happened:

Wallpaper switch to: /home/foo/Pictures/wallpapers/DSCN2385.JPG

...only because I'd explicitly added that jpg to the list of wallpapers, rather than waiting for the scan to detect the new pictures (as it never does).

[bealer (robertbeal)]

This is still happening in Ubuntu 10.10.

As mentioned I've setup the watch folder, run Drapes in debug mode. But when I drop a new image into the watch folder...nothing.