Thanks for the report.
Brasero used to have such a thing as a counter to tell it in advance how many copies it was supposed to burn. And it did not seem the right way to go so I changed its behaviour and went for a button "Do another copy" when a copy was successfully burnt. Either ways you have to be around to insert a new disc when a copy is burnt so the button doesn't change anything.
So I don't think I'll change that.

On the other hand, what you mention in Other information clearly needs improvements. The problem here is that every time you build a new image (and we do that when we burn on the fly), the checksum will be different even you set the same files, same information and so on. So I have to think about that.

Hello Phillip.  Why does it not feel the right way to go to you?  There are many implementation details that may be related to your feeling.  I will try to explain the reasons why I feel that having a counter is the right way to go.

The use case is burning many of the same .iso image discs at a time.  How often do you burn 10 or 20 GNU/Linux CDs to give out to people?  I am now doing it quite frequently.  I want to continue using the default installed burning software instead of being forced to use other software.  I know there are other Brasero users in the same situation as me as it is the default on several distributions.  We share the goal of wanting your software to be the best it can be.

Any button use while burning is, in theory, redundant and an inconvenience that holds up the process when it should be automatic. I just want to swap in new blank disks and it should know what I want after I tell it.  When burning this many disks one after another I'm very busy doing other things: folding CD sleeves, marking completed discs, going to the bathroom, etc.  Any screen interaction during the process is not necessary and a human "mode switch" that gets in the way.

k3b is already optimized for the use case of burning many of the same .iso image discs at a time.  I just swap the discs which is how I feel it should be.

If no counter is added then at least one current behavior I have tripped on is that the Burn Another Disc button needs to not quit the burn process when it finds no disc in the drive.  Either disable the button when a disc is not ready (probably simplest to implement and most clear) or add a dialog box prompting to insert another disc.

Please let me know how I can help.

*** Bug 589389 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Sorry for taking so long to reply.
(In reply to comment #2)

> Any button use while burning is, in theory, redundant and an inconvenience that
> holds up the process when it should be automatic. I just want to swap in new
> blank disks and it should know what I want after I tell it.  When burning this
> many disks one after another I'm very busy doing other things: folding CD
> sleeves, marking completed discs, going to the bathroom, etc.  Any screen
> interaction during the process is not necessary and a human "mode switch" that
> gets in the way.
> 

I understand that another click is always a bit more time but even in the other scenario you still have to be around the machine and pay attention when inserting the disc. That's just one more click and IMO that's not much to pay as there is a benefit. Sometimes you don't know exactly how many copies you want to burn in advance and you may realize after the copies are done that you need one more. Brasero allows you to do exactly that.

> k3b is already optimized for the use case of burning many of the same .iso
> image discs at a time.  I just swap the discs which is how I feel it should be.
> 

Brasero as well as (for example) it would not restart checksuming for a new burn or recreate an image from a file selection but use the one already created (provided you did not ask to burn on the fly otherwise it will but it won't require any time as it will be done in parallel with burning). Of course if apart from clicking on the button you can think of an optimization brasero does not do please let me know.

> If no counter is added then at least one current behavior I have tripped on is
> that the Burn Another Disc button needs to not quit the burn process when it
> finds no disc in the drive.  Either disable the button when a disc is not ready
> (probably simplest to implement and most clear) or add a dialog box prompting
> to insert another disc.
> 

I chose the hardest path. Now after a successful burn, brasero will still present the same dialog of success; when you click on burn again, then if the tray is empty or if there is no proper disc, brasero will open a dialog asking for one and wait. Once it detects the medium it will start.

> Please let me know how I can help.
You already did it by testing =);

Please if I miss something or if you run into the same bug (closing dialog after clicking) feel free to reopen this bug.

I am really disappointed that you have chosen to deliberately remove that feature. Every burning software I know of has this, and it really is needed, especially in a productive environment. At work, we are just in the process of switching for Win to (Ubuntu) Linux, and yet again I have to explain to my users why "Linux" cannot do something as simple as burn multiple copies.

This really hurts productivity because it is more than just another click, you have to switch apps, click the button and *then* insert the CD (I do not know if that's another bug or intended, but inserting the new CD-R first and then clicking results in the blank disc being ejected...), then switch back to continue work. This adds up if you're burning 50+ CDs, and even worse, it get's on the users nerves'. I personally am using more than one PC and a KVM switch when I have to do something like this; this means I additionally have to switch screens just to click one button.

As for the "you may not know beforehand how many copies you want", I now use k3b and always set it to 100 copies or so and click cancel when I'm done. That's still much easier.

If that decision is permanent, I will have to install k3b instead, despite it's rather poor integration into the gnome desktop, If you'd like to help me, you could give me a hint on how to patch the current brasero version to include the functionality again, and I would patch it for my users.

BTW: Please set status to RESOLVED NOTABUG...

> I understand that another click is always a bit more time but [...]

No, you obviously don't understand.  Perhaps for your own use cases this only a minor annoyance of just "another click." but you are ignoring the use cases of several other bug reporters and countless others who are also having the same issues but have not reported it for a myriad of reasons.

> even in the other
> scenario you still have to be around the machine and pay attention when
> inserting the disc

Your assumptions implicit in this statement are: 1) no other foreground processes are running and 2) you are actively looking at the screen of the machine that is burning (when using a kvm you aren't).  Quite a lot of people have either one or the other of these cases or both.  The default installed software for so many Linux distributions should be flexible and usable in as many use cases as possible.  This is a feature that loses users for the brasero software but also some uneducated users assume that "Linux can't do that" and it affects adoption of Linux.  Since this is a bug I filed I am biased but this is not as much of an exaggeration as you might think.

> That's just one more click and IMO that's not much to pay
> as there is a benefit. Sometimes you don't know exactly how many copies you
> want to burn in advance and you may realize after the copies are done that you
> need one more. Brasero allows you to do exactly that.

However currently Brasero actively discriminates against other use cases and disallows other perfectly legitimate uses of the software.

Adding a counter could be done in a way so as not to disrupt the current functionality.  I'm willing to code it if it's necessary and if it would be accepted and I hate to code.  In this case I'll do what I need to get Linux more widely adopted by less technical users.  I think this particular bug falls into this category.

I am extremely disappointed in this outcome as you clearly don't understand the use case I tried to explain in detail in this bug and explained by others such as Andreas and the other bug marked as a duplicate of this one.  You have fixed a relatively minor annoyance (which I should have filed as a separate bug) but have chosen not to address the real issue IMHO.

I have changed the status to Verified (since Andreas has the same problem as I do) & Not a bug.

Ok since you both feel strongly about it and I am a man of concensus, I gave it more thought and I came up with this which may satisfy you. I'm against the counter as I think it's useless but it may be even faster that it (human factor /context switch/application switch included).
what I may do in 2.30 is to add another button next to "Copy", "Burn", ... which would be something like "Copy to several discs", "Burn to several discs", ...
if these latters were clicked then after each copy brasero would display the "insert a new disc" dialog waiting for a new disc to be inserted before starting again and again until you press the "enough copies" button.
Another possibility would be after a successful first burn to display "Make several copies" instead of the current "Make another copy" button which would lead to the above described behavior.

The latter would cause one context switch but it could be better instead of having two buttons like in the first case. I need to think about it a bit more.

Of course suggestions are welcome as long as they don't involve a counter ;).

That's an interesting solution I hadn't thought of.  It would meet many more use cases than are possible now.  It would work quite well and I would be very pleased if it were implemented.  One things computers do well is count - so maybe a feedback counter (not in input counter) would fit with your design philosophy and give the end user the appearance of being in control.

So the issue seems to be that you tried the counter and don't like it.  This has been a very informative thread.  Unfortunately, I don't see any mention of support issues which came up when the counter was in Brasero or any mention of feedback about the counter positive or negative.  So now, you do not want to accept (via a counter) a priori how many discs to duplicate, right?

I am a student of usability.  Online interactions can confuse end users when they fail to meet whatever human expectations they might have.  Education is difficult.  End users LIKE to feel in control.  They don't like to be at the mercy of software or hardware.  Maybe I can only speak for myself but I think this is universal.

If I were to walk up to you and say - I want copies of this CD I would not want you to call me on the phone after each copy was completed.  I would want to tell you how many I wanted.  Could I change my mind later and say I want one more?  Sure, happens all the time in the real world, but that does not negate the need to have an initial target.  Having the computer count for you when you are juggling discs, marking them, moving stuff around, performing tasks on other computers or non computer tasks - counting is what computers do best so I do not understand why there is so much resistance to adding the counter back.  The counter does not preclude any other features, many of which can be implemented in parallel and complement each other.

As Andreas mentioned, every burning software he knows of (and that I know of) has a counter feature.  It has come be be expected be end users including Windows users.  I mention Windows because users of Linux are often users of Windows as well.  End user expectations matter.  If you had more justification than "it didn't feel right, so I removed it" it would help the conversation.

I think the adoption of Linux is going far more mainstream now.  I don't want to give any "opinion leaders" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_leadership any excuse to form a negative opinion.  Mainstream adoption is moving forward from the early adopter stage to the early majority stage, and opinions drive further adoption.  As brasero is the default CD software on many distributions including the ones I use I think this is an important matter.

This was just to let you know, that I implemented one of the 2 solutions I mentionned in master that is after a successful burn, you'll be able to make more copies (and not another copy); on each subsequent insertion of a writable medium, brasero automatically starts to make another copy.

This has been further enhanced by an unexpected patch to adds a microwave oven sound every time a burn is finished which is helpful if you don't have brasero window visible and complements the ejection.

This does not precludes the other solution. I'll try to have it ready for 2.29.2 to evaluate it too; but testing is welcome.


(In reply to comment #9)
> One things computers do well is count - so
> maybe a feedback counter (not in input counter) would fit with your design
> philosophy and give the end user the appearance of being in control.
Good idea and that's done in the dialog that appears when a medium needs to be inserted. Maybe I could add it to the window title.

> So the issue seems to be that you tried the counter and don't like it.  This
> has been a very informative thread.  Unfortunately, I don't see any mention of
> support issues which came up when the counter was in Brasero or any mention of
> feedback about the counter positive or negative.  So now, you do not want to
> accept (via a counter) a priori how many discs to duplicate, right?
> 
One of the things that led me to try the "Make (an)other copy/ies" button is the fact that when brasero got into GNOME it had to replace nautilus cd burner which handled multiple copies that way. Since I tried not to change to many things from NCB from a UI perspective (even though I did) I implemented multiple copies that way.
It's not that I'm against the counter as much as I like the single button solution and I think it's easier to use and more elegant that having to type the number of copies or push repeatedly the + or - buttons.

> I am a student of usability.  Online interactions can confuse end users when
> they fail to meet whatever human expectations they might have.  Education is
> difficult.  End users LIKE to feel in control.  They don't like to be at the
> mercy of software or hardware.  Maybe I can only speak for myself but I think
> this is universal.
> 
> If I were to walk up to you and say - I want copies of this CD I would not want
> you to call me on the phone after each copy was completed.  I would want to
> tell you how many I wanted.  Could I change my mind later and say I want one
> more?  Sure, happens all the time in the real world, but that does not negate
> the need to have an initial target.  Having the computer count for you when you
> are juggling discs, marking them, moving stuff around, performing tasks on
> other computers or non computer tasks - counting is what computers do best so I
> do not understand why there is so much resistance to adding the counter back. 
> The counter does not preclude any other features, many of which can be
> implemented in parallel and complement each other.
>

Well yes, on the other hand, when I have a lot of discs to burn, I have each of them ready by me. So when my pile is empty, I just guess that it's over.
I understand your argument about being in control, but on the other hand, I don't really see the need for numbers in this case.

> As Andreas mentioned, every burning software he knows of (and that I know of)
> has a counter feature.  It has come be be expected be end users including
> Windows users.  I mention Windows because users of Linux are often users of
> Windows as well.  End user expectations matter.  If you had more justification
> than "it didn't feel right, so I removed it" it would help the conversation.
> 

I thought about it and I don't have any argument except that I like it and just feel it to be easier.

I did the second part. Now two buttons are displayed, "Make Several Copies" and "Burn/Copy". If the first one is use of course at the end of the burn session the user won't be presented with "Make Another Copy".

So now I guess I can close the bug but of course feel free to reopen this bug if you can think of something I missed.

Thanks