bug (?) report

[Benedikt Meurer]

bez_tlenowiec at o2.pl wrote:
> Hi Benedikt,

Hey Krzysztof,

First of all: Please use the mailinglist (xfce4-dev, thunar-dev) for
feature discussion and bug reports, and don't attach thousands of lines
of text files (maybe a tar archive, but better upload them somewhere and
include links). (CC'ing xfce4-dev)

> I decided to definitely get rid of MS Windows and use Opensource OS for
> everyday use. After comparing different Linux distros I selected...
> FreeBSD. I'm aware of fact that it'll need a lot of configuration job,
> but this will motivate me to learn more about *nix OSes.
> GNOME and KDE were excluded at the beginning (I don't want to change one
> fat environment to another very fat too). XFCE was my first choice, but
> I was disappointed by it's file manager.
> In fact, this was the biggest surprise for me that finding a good file
> manager would be most difficult task. I tested almost everything form
> FreeBSD ports x11-fm section and I found more crap than something
> useful. Xfe (http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/) was the only one that seemed
> to acceptable. (Except for crappy look, but this is relatively easy to
> be fixed)
> Your Thunar makes the situation different.
> I've FreeBSD 6.0 RC1 compiled from scratch installed on my old
> workstation (Athlon 1200, 265MB RAM) for test purposes. Everything is
> configured with default values. I tried to compile previous versions of
> Thunar and exo and I always failed. Seeing that you ask for tests of
> pre-release XFXE 4.4 I got more motivated and I compiled the staff to
> the point to be able to run Thunar(with difficulties).
> First impression: This is something I was looking for - excellent.
> Wish list:
> - Search files with content
> It's well known that regardless the approach you use to organize your
> files at the end of the day you have to use a combination of find and
> grep:) This is a feature that every user need and I appreciated the
> integration of it in MS Explorer. In my opinion this is something that
> good file manager must have. Searching by "writing petition to operating
> system in terminal window" is not an option.

That's on TODO (there's already a page in the Thunar dev wiki about
search integration), but unlikely to be available for 4.4.0.

> - Twin panel. I know your opinion, but after using Xfe I reminded myself
> old days of Norton Commander and how much time took me to get used to
> one-panel FM in Windows. This is a suggestion only, but such feature in
> main FM in XFCE would be very strong argument - you satisfy proponents
> and opponents of orthodox FM approach at the same time. BTW, I hate tree
> view since XtreeGold. If you added another panel for tree view, you
> should add a panel for twin view. But this is my personal feeling.

This was requested earlier, and doesn't fit into the current design of
Thunar, tho you can write a twinview file manager based on Thunar (maybe
somebody is already working on this).

> - My favourite is one panel view with the option Toolbar Style for
> Location Selection. I suggest using of list box containing bookmarks for
> this purpose. This would be similar to (or better than) MS Explorer and
> would allow enthusiasts of tree view to have both: the tree in left
> panel and the bookmarks on the list. I guess this particular feature is
> easy to be implemented.

Yep, one day the shortcuts will be available in the "Go" menu when the
shortcuts pane is hidden. Just a matter of time...

> - Number of files listed in the window. On my test machine, both Xfe and
> Thunar were configured to use the same font size, and the same icon size
> (16x16). Using the same window size I can see 20 files in Xfe and 15 in
> Thunar. Please think about lower value of "interline".

The spacings for the icon/compact view are configurable via gtkrc, check
the project wiki.

> - Having a kind of "history" available after clicking on right part of
> "Back" button is something normal for most browsers nowadays. This is a
> gadget - please consider if not require a big effort.

File a file feature request (bugzilla.xfce.org, product Thunar).

> Finally my "bug report".
> I downloaded "fat tarbal" and tried to compile it on my test workstation
> according to the description I found on XFCE web page.
> Results:
> 1. xfce4-dev-tools
>     no problem
> 2. libxfce4util
>     no problem
> 3. libxfcegui4
>     no problem
> 4. libxfce4mcs
>     no problem
> 5. xfce-mcs-manager
>     in xfce-mcs-manager-4.3.90.1 I excuted:
> export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig
> ./configure (result OK)
> make (result: mkdir ./libs, gcc[...]
> make: don't know how to make xfce-mcs-settingd-manager.desktop. Stop
> *** Error code 1)
> in xfce-mcs-manager-4.3.90.1/xfce-setting-show/Makefile I commented
> lines 255-257(sorry for this "brute force method", attached Makefile5)
> and run
> make (result OK)
> 
> 6. libexo
> in exo-0.3.1.6beta1 I executed:
> export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig
> ./configure
> (result OK)
> make
> (result: Making all in exo-source [...]
> In file included from
> main.c:43:
> /usr/local/include/glib2-0/glib/gi-18n-lib.h: libintl.h: no such file or
> directory
> *** Error code 1) (Attached Makefile6)
> I repeated configure with:
> CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include ./configure and run make again
> make
> (result:making all in exo-helper, make all recursive, making all in
> helpers, make: don't know how to make Terminal.desktop
> *** Error code 1)
> in exo-0.3.1.6beta1/Makefile)
> I deleted line 285 exo-helper\ ((sorry for "brute force" again) and
> make
> (result: OK)
> 
> 7. thunar
> export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig
> ./configure
> (result OK)
> make
> (result: make: don't know how to make uca.xml. Stop
> *** Error code 1
> fixed by commenting lines 368-371 in Thunar-0.3beta1/Makefile and line
> 319 in
> Thunar-0.3beta1/plugins/Makefile ("brute force)
> Make
> OK
> 8. xfce4-panel
> configure OK,
> make
> (result:
> xfce4-panel-4.3.90.1/panel/panel-dialogs.c:899: undefined reference to
> `xfce_create_framebox'
>  *** Error code 1)

You need to use GNU make instead of BSD make, see the devel/gmake port.
The not found libintl.h is a known issue with FreeBSD, you can "fix"
this by invoking configure with

 env CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include $CPPFLAGS" ./configure ....

> I gave up and started playing with Thunar.
> 
> I'm attaching all confing.log and Makefiles files generated for steps 1
> to 8. If you find them useful I'll be glad. If you want to know anything
> about detail configuration of my test box let me know. If you find any
> option that might be tested by, I'm ready. I've got another free disk
> ready for any FreeBSD version if you want me to check something let me
> know too. (Another option is Fedora Core 3 distro which I have installed
> for other reasons, but not used).
> 
> Many thanks for your good job, and good luck in the future.

You're welcome.

> Best regards,
> Krzysztof (Chris)

Benedikt