In the meantime, an ugly solution would be to check fstab for somthing
resembling a camera. (/mnt/camera, /mnt/canon, /mnt/minolta etc.) 

I think most vendors follow some standard for their cameras regarding
location/naming of the images. GThumb could then just mount it, copy the images,
eventually delete them and then umount it.

GThumb could contain a list of cameras with paths of images/videofiles and let
the user select one in a list. If the camera isn't available, then the user
could add the correct path and names of the files and mail the spec. to the
maintainer of GThumb. Perhaps a button "Share this model with others" that sends
the mail :-)

This is not a beautiful solution, it's not even nice, but may be sufficient
until HAL gets wider adoption...

I think this is certainly something worth implementing - I really love gThumb,
but have trouble getting other members of the household to use it, and this is
one of the features they would like.

Created attachment 31693 [details] [review]
Patch to support importing photos from a given directory

Here is a patch adding the needed functionality to the "Import Photos" dialog.

You can automatically open this dialog on program startup by specifying the
--import-path=<path> option. Thus, you can automatically import photos from
usb-storage cameras using gnome-volume-manager by specifying "gthumb
--import-path="%m"".

The whole support for importing photos from the filesystem *could* be GnomeVFS
compliant. However, I did not test it with special URIs. 

I might have broken libgphoto support. I cannot test this because I do not own
a digital camera which can be accessed with libgphoto.

This feature has been tested with the "Sanyo (Xacti) VPC-J1EX" camera.

Created attachment 31694 [details]
Updated german translation for attachment #31693 [details]

I am running gthumb 2.6.1 and it seems this patch has not yet been applied to
it. Is it in cvs ? if not, why ?

I believe this would be useful to a lot of people.

withe the proliferation of USB mass storage cameras it seems that a direcctory
import would make sence for gthumb and gnome users in general (digikam can do
this?).  Any chance of getting this patched updated and applied to cvs?

Created attachment 35985 [details] [review]
The above patch modified to apply to current CVS

Here is another patch which applies to the current CVS. I made some quick tests
but I did not do in-depth testing this time.

Everytime you want to import photos, a Window pops up telling you that you
camera is an unknown model. This is a known issue with this patch I was too
lazy to track down.

*** Bug 147755 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Hi,

probably all usb storage cameras use the directory DCIM/dcim as root and then
some other directory as <model> or (in my case) 100camera for the photos. The
path to my photos then looks like "/some/mountpoint/dcim/100camera/". I've
experienced that with my Traveler cam and with my uncle's Olympus cam. Maybe
someone can affirm that with other models? With this knowledge it would be
possible to "autodetect" such cameras for import.

DCF (Design rule for Camera Filesystem) specifies the file system format. It is available at http://www.exif.org/dcf.PDF.

It specifies 
   * the DCF character set for use in file- and directory names: digits, capital letter and underscore

   * the DCF root directory: <fsroot>/DCIM

   * names for photograph directories under DCF root:
      * 8 character names
      * first three characters make a number from 100-999. 000-099 are not allowed
      * last five character can be any in the DCF character set

   * only DOS FAT read-only attribute is supported for directories

   * other directories in <fsroot> and <fsroot>/DCIM are allow but ignored.

   * names for files in DCS directories:
      * 8 character names
      * first four characters are any character in DCF character set
      * other four character are digits only and are called the DCF file number

   * 3 character DOS-style file-name extension

   * allowed file formats and corresponding extension: JPG, THM, or other


So, <fsroot>/DCIM/100camera is illegal, but <fsroot>/DCIM/100CAMERA is allowed. My HP is <fsroot>/DCIM/100HP620.

On my Ubuntu Dapper system, gnome-volume-manager contains a script called gnome-volume-manager-gthumb which is trying to find out if the camera has usb mass storage support. If it's the case, it tries to open gthumb in the image directory of that camera, otherwise it calls "gthumb --import-photos".

I'm not sure if this is a ubuntu-specific enhancement, or if it is part of gnome-volume-manager.

But this doesn't solve the real problem: the missing mass storage camera support of gThumb. I think it's import tool is very good in terms of simplicity, and I don't know why one has to install digiKam for importing images from mass storage cameras, when there is a (at least test-worthy) patch lying around since 2004(!).

I would really like to see this bug get more attention.

*** Bug 316990 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I have owned three different digital cameras, and every one of them has been a usb mass storage device. Everyone I know has a usb mass storage digital camera. I get the distinct feeling that most consumer level cameras are usb mass storage devices, so this bug likely affects almost all of the target audience (but who am I to decide who is the target audience).

(In reply to comment #10)
> So, <fsroot>/DCIM/100camera is illegal, but <fsroot>/DCIM/100CAMERA is allowed.

Though the spec says not to use lower-case letters for naming image files and directories, it explicitly states that directories and files with lower-case names should be treated as if their names were in all upper-case letters.

Design rule for Camera File system, Version 1.0, Page 3:
> If an existing directory or file name uses lower-case letters, they shall
> be treated as all upper-case letters. ... If lower-case letters from 61.H
> through 7A.H are used, they shall be treated as upper-case letters from
> 41.H to 5A.H.

So, I think letter case should definitely be ignored.

just use libgphoto2 2.2.x or later. the directory driver support detecting mounted file systems.

According to https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=108874&aid=1581262&group_id=8874,  version 2.2.x of libgphoto includes a "directory" driver for the purpose of supporting mass storage cameras.

gthumb uses libgphoto for its import functions.

Can someone install libgphoto 2.2.x and report back? Does it auto-detect mass storage cameras, or allow you to specify one manually in the gthumb import dialog?

- Mike

OK, I tested gthumb CVS + libgphoto2 2.2.1, and it does auto-detect mass storage devices as promised.

It did auto-detect and import from my flash card in a card reader, which FC5 had automounted as /media/disk/DCIM/...

I'm closing this bug as FIXED. Install libgphoto > 2.2.0 to obtain usb-mass-storage functionality.

- Mike