[Thunar-dev] Thunar and not wanting to mount devices with HAL

[Jourdan Ritchey]

Hello,

I've recently moved my workstations over to the new Xfce4.4 with Thunar, and
am very, very happy with the experience.  However, there is one aspect of
Thunar which I would like some choice about.

I use Arch linux, and in our repository we have two packages: 'thunar' and
'thunar-volman'.  I was both surprised and disappointed when I discovered
that 'thunar-volman' isn't the whole and complete
volume-mounting-and-management package (but whether or not it should be
isn't my contention).

I use AutoFS for not only my external media, but also for server access.
HAL doesn't support some of my drives, and Thunar, as stated on the Web
site, is a file manager and not a network client ("or at least until a
framework exists").  I find AutoFS to be a very easy and simple solution for
these purposes.

With the Thunar compiler as-is, the packager for our repository has told me
that there is no compile-time option for enabling/disabling Thunar's
management of external media.  But doing some testing on my own, I've found
that disabling HAL effectively removes Thunar's automatic inclusion of icons
for the drives it detects using HAL.

Would it be possible to create a compile-time option for Thunar so that the
external media management is optional, even if HAL is installed and
running?  This would make for a very attractive tool with those of us who
prefer using AutoFS to manage external media.

My original forum post regarding this:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=232153

Replies can be sent to my email or posted to the Arch Linux forum.  I would
be happy to assist with the related documentation and such should this
option be made available in Thunar.  Writing an AutoFS plugin for Thunar
might not be beyond me, either.

Regards,

Jourdan
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