Desktop usability: how to unmount devices?

[Cef]

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 04:35, Martin Pitt wrote:

> To unmount it again, the user currently has to open the Computer window,
> right-click on the device and select "Unmount" / "Eject". This option
> should be always present, but it is too obscure. The user did not use the
> Computer window to access the device, and before he finds the Computer
> window and the context menu, he will have ripped out the USB stick (or,
> even more dangerous, the CD from the locked drive).

Can we easily detect if a user presses eject when the drive is locked? I'd be 
guessing that some sort of event from DBUS/hal/hotplug/udev could be involved 
here.

If so, we can have an applet that either unmounts then ejects the CDROM, or 
pops up a dialog stating that the CD is in use (ie: something is accessing 
it) and offer the user:
 1. Cancel (ie: Don't eject)
 2. Try again (ie: I've closed the offending processes)
 3. Force eject (bad, but may be necessary)
 4. Send focus to the app using the CD (if possible)

This is then rather intuitive IMHO.

Note: Not necessarily in that order!

-- 
 Stuart Young - aka Cefiar - cef at optus.net