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Bug 682126 - Show the user's most recent photos
Show the user's most recent photos
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: gnome-control-center
Classification: Core
Component: Background
3.5.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Control-Center Maintainers
Control-Center Maintainers
triaged
: 687368 689375 695663 703907 709282 732414 744003 747592 754585 767109 782334 782696 786312 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: 691366
 
 
Reported: 2012-08-17 22:53 UTC by Debarshi Ray
Modified: 2021-06-09 16:28 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Debarshi Ray 2012-08-17 22:53:05 UTC
Currently only files in ~/Pictures are picked, but not the ones in ~/Pictures/foo or ~/Pictures/foo/bar. We should recursively traverse all folders.
Comment 1 Bastien Nocera 2012-08-18 15:25:12 UTC
I don't think we should. Even with the new background selector, having 300 or 500 photos showing up in the background selection dialogue makes it close to useless.

Having a "Set as background" in the Photos app sounds like a much better idea, rather than trying to duplicate the content selection in the control-center.
Comment 2 William Jon McCann 2012-08-20 19:58:58 UTC
Bastien, not going into directories probably makes it worthless for most people. I think if we are worried about the size then we should just limit the selection to the most recent few dozen. Using time is a much more logical ordering than just looking at the top level of the hierarchy.
Comment 3 Laurent Pointecouteau 2012-11-07 23:35:00 UTC
I use a ~/Pictures/Backgrounds (with French folder names) hierarchy to store my wallpapers. I would like to use the background selector to browse this folder, but instead it only shows me the content of ~/Pictures, where there is no screen-sized images files (along with some recently-used wallpapers, but only some of those, and mixed-up with the content of ~/Pictures in a seemingly random order).

If the "Set as background" option (currently available from Files or EoG) has become the preferred way to do this, why do we still have a separate background selector that can't find (or, at least, let me point out) where are stored my favourite wallpapers ?
Comment 4 Bastien Nocera 2012-12-03 15:58:58 UTC
*** Bug 687368 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Bastien Nocera 2012-12-03 15:59:21 UTC
*** Bug 689375 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Bastien Nocera 2013-03-12 08:08:19 UTC
*** Bug 695663 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Samuel Sieb 2013-03-25 20:29:14 UTC
Maybe some way to set which folder to check for background pictures or some way in the selector to change the current folder?
Comment 8 Debarshi Ray 2013-04-15 12:14:34 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Having a "Set as background" in the Photos app sounds like a much better idea,
> rather than trying to duplicate the content selection in the control-center.

This is implemented in Photos 3.8.0.
Comment 9 Bastien Nocera 2013-04-23 12:04:08 UTC
Retitling after taking into account comment 2.

This should use the same system as Photos to find the most recent photos, though we probably want to avoid the grilo dependency if we can. We probably need to hit Tracker directly.
Comment 10 Peter Shaws 2013-05-08 10:24:29 UTC
There is absolutely no need to overcomplicate this.

(In reply to comment #1)
> I don't think we should.

Me neither, but:

> Even with the new background selector, having 300 or 500 photos showing up
> in the background selection dialogue makes it close to useless.

A 'Browse' button should suffice, and the resulting file picker shouldn't be allowed to select folders. If overcrowding the dialog with pictures is an issue, there could be a limit to the number of items in the chooser, with the most recently chosen images pushing off the oldest ones.

> Having a "Set as background" in the Photos app sounds like a much better idea,
> rather than trying to duplicate the content selection in the control-center.

Why shouldn't one be able to use Control Center's Background pane to freely choose a picture as a wallpaper, if that certainly is not a deviation of its function? Why must one use (yet another) photo management app for that, especially considering that otherwise one might have no need for one whatsoever?

(In reply to comment #8)
> This is implemented in Photos 3.8.0.

Could you point me to a DEB package for that app? I couldn't find one.
Comment 11 Erick Perez Castellanos 2013-05-21 14:03:29 UTC
I still think somehow I should be able to select which folder or picture.

And the argument of the option in Photos is not that right, mentally, when I want to change the background, I go the application for changing my settings, not handling my photos. See above for more reasons.

As pointed above, I think a [Browse] or [Select] button will suffice
Comment 12 Gwendal 2013-05-21 15:10:19 UTC
As a user, I completly agree with comment 3: I would love to be able to select the folder that contains all my wallpapers, so that all my wallpapers appear in the nice chooser window. I simply don't want the pictures of ~/Pictures to even show up in the chooser, I only want to see my wallpapers, which will most likely be in ~/Pictures/Wallpapers.

Maybe the "Pictures" tab of the chooser could be renamed "Custom wallpapers" or something similar, with the possibility to choose the folder it considers?

I also would enjoy a "Previous backgrounds" tab, showing the last 5 or 10 pictures I chose either from system wallpapers, custom ones, or colors.
Comment 13 Peter 2013-05-22 09:08:06 UTC
I think the old dialog for selection of the background-picture provided better access for users. So, here is a short list:

• After selection "Background" from "Settings" the general assumption is to be able to change the background. But instead it is required to click the current image of the background again. This is unnecessary. I've seen this at novice-users, they get puzzled. The want change the background and see nothing which provides any hint what to do next. They stop. Wonder if the made someting wrong. Return to Settings and try again...

• Directory-Handling is weird and doesn't fit the requirement (this bug). And it is hard, to do it right and in a way which fits for every user. The requirement is to select a background picture from the random place:
Let us just add a GtkFileChooser and an button with the label "Open" or "Select". Problem solved :-)
• We could also provide the top-level content of "~/Pictures", as we do already, by default.
• In addition we can keep all previously used backgrounds in "~/.config/background" and provide them also. See also next bullet-point!

• We shouldn't store the current background in a user visible directory. We should use "~/.config/backgrounds" instead, or someting similiar. The background is a "setting" and should be stored like a "setting". Especially we can't demand the existence of any XDG-Directories. A lot of people don't use them. At first time usage I wondered what application re-created "~/Pictures",again. I always delete this kind of XDG-Directories. So I deleted the directory again, my background got lost. I wondered what happend. So I was forced to use dconf instead to workaround this.

• We should provide the GtkComboBox with the options to stretch, zoom, scale, center and tile a background. Screens use different aspect-ratios 4:3, 16:9, 16:10 and even 21:9. In my case a use a background from Lenovo/IBM which is designed for 16:10 but current ThinkPads use 16:9.

If it is not enough time to provide this within the current style of the "Background"-Setting, or doesn't fit in the design, we could reuse the code from "3.0" - "3.4". This will fix the issues. You can see it here, at bottom-right:
http://afaikblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/before-and-after.png

Thank you
Comment 14 Bastien Nocera 2013-05-22 09:17:19 UTC
We don't need any more UI ideas about this, the bug just needs to be fixed, so no need to post large comments that are not going to be taken into account.
Comment 15 Peter 2013-05-22 16:35:55 UTC
I'm just trying to help you. As far as I know the background-setting is more or less your child.
I'm afraid adding only "Set Background" to (the next) external application will not fix "Settings->Background". Providing "Recent-Pictures" based on tracker is non-deterministic for users. The root of this bug is the current UI.
Comment 16 Bastien Nocera 2013-10-03 16:16:28 UTC
*** Bug 709282 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 Bastien Nocera 2013-10-04 06:49:55 UTC
*** Bug 703907 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 18 Debarshi Ray 2014-06-29 09:23:55 UTC
*** Bug 732414 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Debarshi Ray 2015-02-05 13:53:06 UTC
*** Bug 744003 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 20 Debarshi Ray 2015-04-10 12:01:43 UTC
*** Bug 747592 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 21 Debarshi Ray 2015-09-04 21:09:46 UTC
*** Bug 754585 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 22 Debarshi Ray 2017-08-15 15:50:34 UTC
*** Bug 767109 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 23 Debarshi Ray 2017-08-15 15:51:05 UTC
*** Bug 782334 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 24 Debarshi Ray 2017-08-15 15:54:02 UTC
*** Bug 782696 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 25 Debarshi Ray 2017-08-15 16:24:42 UTC
*** Bug 786312 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 26 jfblagden 2017-09-29 14:18:03 UTC
I think this could be fixed in line 1011 of bg-pictures-source.c. I'm just not sure how to fix it. I learned Java, not C or C++ and I'm also not too familiar with desktop environment development, so I'm a little lost. 

I'm not sure if G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES should be changed to G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES/WALLPAPERS or G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES_WALLPAPERS
Comment 27 Debarshi Ray 2017-10-02 11:50:25 UTC
(In reply to jfblagden from comment #26)
> I think this could be fixed in line 1011 of bg-pictures-source.c. I'm just
> not sure how to fix it. I learned Java, not C or C++ and I'm also not too
> familiar with desktop environment development, so I'm a little lost. 
> 
> I'm not sure if G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES should be changed to
> G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES/WALLPAPERS or G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES_WALLPAPERS

No, see comment 9
Comment 28 jfblagden 2017-10-02 12:27:36 UTC
(In reply to Debarshi Ray from comment #27)
> (In reply to jfblagden from comment #26)
> > I think this could be fixed in line 1011 of bg-pictures-source.c. I'm just
> > not sure how to fix it. I learned Java, not C or C++ and I'm also not too
> > familiar with desktop environment development, so I'm a little lost. 
> > 
> > I'm not sure if G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES should be changed to
> > G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES/WALLPAPERS or G_USER_DIRECTORY_PICTURES_WALLPAPERS
> 
> No, see comment 9

Whoops. Wrong bug. I meant to put that here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=782696

I'll paste it over there.
Comment 29 Debarshi Ray 2017-10-02 14:07:24 UTC
*** Bug 782696 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 30 André Klapper 2021-06-09 16:28:06 UTC
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org.
As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org
which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately
quite limited so not every ticket can get handled).

If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent
and supported software version, then please follow
  https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines
and create a new bug report at
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-control-center/-/issues/

Thank you for your understanding and your help.