Improvements and streamlining File handling on AVL
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2025 7:01 pm
Hi!
I had a bit of time off this week and have been working on AVL development and have made some good progress on an issue that has irked me and no doubt is a contributing factor to why people find Enlightenment so 'confusing'..
To recap:
Enlightenment has a native File Manager 'Enlightenment File Manager' (EFM).. It's a great File 'browser' and actually has a built in pic viewer and media player but has too many limitations to be considered a great File 'Manager' so like Bodhi Linux I've included Thunar for it's modularity, light footprint and familiarity with XFCE4 users. Having 2 File Managers is a bit of a kludge because EFM handles a lot of Enlightenment's internal calls so when you take a screenshot it pops open, when you insert removable media like a USB Key or SDCard it's EFM that shows the device and pops up on the Desktop.. This is potentially confusing because you may unwittingly think that Thunar has opened your USB key but when you go to work with the files it's EFM and it behaves and looks different. EFM like much of Enlightenment is a module that can be turned on or off but when I've experimented with turning it off Thunar or even PCManFM does not show a mounted removable device on the Desktop even when the appropriate internal settings are made so you end up plugging in the key and nothing visually happens and then manually having to open the File Manager to mount and access the key contents.. Now if you use Windows that's not entirely weird but most Linux DE's handle this by showing you the device on the Desktop and even optionally opening it for you.
I reached out to my friend Stefan from Bodhi Linux and he said that Bodhi's 'Moksha' fork of Enlightenment handles this with an added custom FM feature in EFM and he also mentioned a 'Places' module that isn't part of a default Debian Enlightenment install so I figured I was out of luck.. I visited the Enlightenment IRC (where I was quite grumpy to be honest) and once again the 'Places' module came up and one of the IRC folks pointed me to the GIT sources so I compiled the module and was very pleased to see that it allows for you to name a custom File Manager and I could choose Thunar... So what am I on about?? The places module is also a 'gadget' so it can be placed on the Desktop, on the Shelf (panel) and also can appear in the main menu and it allows also to automatically mount removable Media and use whatever File Manager you have selected. So now Thunar can be the primary handler of removable Media without EFM's little nose in there and for me this has been a big deal to finally find a decent fix for!
Hopefully I can package this optional module properly and make it available for existing Users, this will definitely be rolled into the next release..
I had a bit of time off this week and have been working on AVL development and have made some good progress on an issue that has irked me and no doubt is a contributing factor to why people find Enlightenment so 'confusing'..
To recap:
Enlightenment has a native File Manager 'Enlightenment File Manager' (EFM).. It's a great File 'browser' and actually has a built in pic viewer and media player but has too many limitations to be considered a great File 'Manager' so like Bodhi Linux I've included Thunar for it's modularity, light footprint and familiarity with XFCE4 users. Having 2 File Managers is a bit of a kludge because EFM handles a lot of Enlightenment's internal calls so when you take a screenshot it pops open, when you insert removable media like a USB Key or SDCard it's EFM that shows the device and pops up on the Desktop.. This is potentially confusing because you may unwittingly think that Thunar has opened your USB key but when you go to work with the files it's EFM and it behaves and looks different. EFM like much of Enlightenment is a module that can be turned on or off but when I've experimented with turning it off Thunar or even PCManFM does not show a mounted removable device on the Desktop even when the appropriate internal settings are made so you end up plugging in the key and nothing visually happens and then manually having to open the File Manager to mount and access the key contents.. Now if you use Windows that's not entirely weird but most Linux DE's handle this by showing you the device on the Desktop and even optionally opening it for you.
I reached out to my friend Stefan from Bodhi Linux and he said that Bodhi's 'Moksha' fork of Enlightenment handles this with an added custom FM feature in EFM and he also mentioned a 'Places' module that isn't part of a default Debian Enlightenment install so I figured I was out of luck.. I visited the Enlightenment IRC (where I was quite grumpy to be honest) and once again the 'Places' module came up and one of the IRC folks pointed me to the GIT sources so I compiled the module and was very pleased to see that it allows for you to name a custom File Manager and I could choose Thunar... So what am I on about?? The places module is also a 'gadget' so it can be placed on the Desktop, on the Shelf (panel) and also can appear in the main menu and it allows also to automatically mount removable Media and use whatever File Manager you have selected. So now Thunar can be the primary handler of removable Media without EFM's little nose in there and for me this has been a big deal to finally find a decent fix for!
Hopefully I can package this optional module properly and make it available for existing Users, this will definitely be rolled into the next release..
you think you know all the cards but you don't...
Well done Glen, amazing find.