[Thunar-dev] "Ejecting" USB flash drives

[Harald Judt]

Am 23.02.2011 18:11, schrieb Jannis Pohlmann:
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:05:55 +0100
> Yves-Alexis Perez<corsac at debian.org>  wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2011-02-23 at 17:57 +0100, Jannis Pohlmann wrote:
>>> But why do you need to unmount at all then? Just eject once you now
>>> longer intend to have the device connected to your machine.
>>
>> Because I don't want to keep stuff mounted when I don't need it.
>
> So you're umounting simply because you *can*? So by removing that
> option we actually save you a lot of time because you no longer have a
> way to pursue your weird habbit of unmounting things all the time.
> Isn't that a good thing? :P
>
> I don't know how a device still mounted could be considered bad (or
> distracting) other than for reasons of power management (but there eject
> helps).

First, I like the idea that there is only one option for 
unmount/detaching/ejecting/whatever-you-call-it a device. I agree that 
it is simplier to understand. However, 'ejecting' for me also has a 
connotation of concerning hardware and physical manipulation which in 
this case seems a bit inappropriate. Never mind, the semantics are not 
that important here.

I can imagine one reason why still showing the device after ejecting it 
might be useful: You won't guess how many people forget their USB flash 
drives (no, that gladly did not happen to me). If they still see it 
attached, they might be more alert not to forget.

 >> Because I don't want to keep stuff mounted when I don't need it.

It is the same with me. Additionally, I can be sure that everything has 
been written to disk when I unmount it, so the filesystem won't get 
corrupt in case of troubles. Just a matter of habit. And I like to see 
what is still (physically) attached to the computer.

These issues put aside, what would make everyone happy would be gio 
reporting the 'ejectable' capability correctly so that thunar doesn't 
try to eject the device if "ejectable" is false. Assuming that this is 
indeed the problem like you stated in a previous mail. I will 
investigate further why this doesn't work correctly and would of course 
greatly appreciate your help.

Finally, I like the new eject icon. It is clear and saves you a click 
and the delay of reading a menu entry.

Regards,
Harald

-- 
`Experience is the best teacher.'