[Bug 658175] Re: Shotwell: display ~/Pictures by default

[Ugo Riboni]

I had a look at the source, here's a quick recap on how shotwell works:
Shotwell will keep track of all pictures by creating for each one a record in a table in shotwell's internal SQLite3 database (~/.shotwell/data/photo.db).
When asked to import pictures it can either create a "link" or copy it. When creating a "link", it will just add the record to the table. When copying the picture, it will first copy it to its "library location" (defined in gconf in /apps/shotwell/preferences/files/import_dir, by default ~) and then create the record in the table pointing to the copy.

On first run, shotwell will already display the dialog box in the attached screenshot.
This dialog box prompts the user to import any pictures that exist in the "library location" and only creates links to them.

Given the above, I think we have different choices here to fix the bug:

* First possibility is to change the default "library location" to be
~/Pictures and leave everything as it is. This may cause a problem if
~/Pictures is mounted read-only, since if the user later chooses to
import pictures from a camera with the copy option, they will be copied
there.

* Second possibility is to add another checkbox in that dialog and ask
the user if he wants to import ~/Pictures (perhaps with a text such as
"Import photos from Windows" or something similar). This will run the
one-time import operation on that folder too, but still leave the
"library location" set to ~ (or whatever the user sets in the
Edit->Preferences menu).

* Third possibility is to just do the same as option two, but without
giving the user a checkbox for it and just doing it (which may be
confusing if the user chooses not to import anything in the dialog and
then sees that something is being imported anyway -- unless we do the
~/Pictures import suppressing its progress notification).

I'd go for option two, but I'm open to suggestions.


** Attachment added: "screenshot of the first run dialog in shotwell"
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/leprechaun/+bug/658175/+attachment/1685357/+files/shotwell-welcome-dialog.png

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Shotwell: display ~/Pictures by default
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/658175
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