ThunarVFS vs. GIO

ThunarVFS vs. GIO

Equivalents / Replacements

ThunarVFS	GIO	Solution
ThunarVfsDeepCountJob	–	Rewrite as ThunarDeepCountJob
ThunarVfsFileSize	guint64	Replace
ThunarVfsFileTime	guint64	Replace
ThunarVfsFileType	GFileType	Replace
ThunarVfsGroup	–	Rename to ThunarGroup
ThunarVfsInfo	GFileInfo	Replace
ThunarVfsJob	–	Rewrite as ThunarJob
ThunarVfsMimeApplication	GAppInfo	Replace
ThunarVfsMimeDatabase	GAppInfo	Replace
ThunarVfsMonitor	GFileMonitor	Replace
ThunarVfsPath	GFile	Replace
ThunarVfsSimpleJob	–	Rewrite as ThunarSimpleJob
ThunarVfsThumbFactory	–	Rewrite as ThunarThumbnailFactory
ThunarVfsTransferJob	–	Rewrite as ThunarTransferJob
ThunarVfsUser	–	Rename to ThunarUser
ThunarVfsUserManager	–	Rename to ThunarUserManager
ThunarVfsVolume	GVolume/GMount/GDrive	Replace
ThunarVfsVolumeManager	GVolumeMonitor	Replace

Sync vs. Async

ThunarFile       *file = thunar_file_get_for_path ("/home/jannis/test.txt");
ThunarVfsFileSize size = thunar_file_get_size (file);

vs.

GFile     *file = g_file_new_for_path ("/home/jannis/test.txt");
GFileInfo *info = g_file_query_info (file, "standard::*", G_FILE_QUERY_INFO_NONE, cancellable, &error);
guint64    size = g_file_info_get_size (info);

vs.

void 
file_info_ready_cb (GObject      *source_object,
                    GAsyncResult *result,
                    gpointer      user_data)
{
  GError    *error = NULL;
  GFileInfo *info;

  info = g_file_query_info_finish (G_FILE (source_object), result, &error);
  ...
}

GFile *file = g_file_new_for_path ("/home/jannis/test.txt");
g_file_query_info_async (file, "standard::*", G_FILE_QUERY_INFO_NONE, 0, cancellable, file_info_ready_cb, user_data);

Singleton vs. Per-File

ThunarVfsMonitor       *monitor = thunar_vfs_monitor_get_default ();
ThunarVfsMonitorHandle *handle = thunar_vfs_monitor_add_file (monitor, path, callback, user_data);

vs.

GFileMonitor *monitor = g_file_monitor_file (file, G_FILE_MONITOR_NONE, cancellable, &error);

Jobs vs. Low-level Functions

ThunarVFS has a job framework based on the ThunarVfsJob base class. It has implementations for tasks like

determining the total size and number of children of a file or directory,
copying directories recursively,
and many more.

GIO only has per-file functions like g_file_copy_async() which don't work recursively. As a consequence, the job framework will have to be moved into Thunar. This will most likely require all jobs to be rewritten based on GIO. It's very likely that the job framework has to be redesigned beforehand, due to the asynchronous APIs in GIO.

Built-In Thumbnailing vs. Do-It-Yourself

With ThunarVfsThumbFactory, ThunarVFS has built-in support for generating file thumbnails using thumbnailers like those provided with the thunar-thumbnailers package. All GIO does is looking in $HOME/.thumbnails/ for available thumbnails. It has no support for generating them.

We'll have to move ThunarVfsThumbFactory and related code into Thunar or, even better, into exo.