HAL policies for port. music players

[Michael Favia]

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Michael A. Peters wrote:
| On 01/09/2005 02:50:52 PM, Havoc Pennington wrote:
|
|>
|> My prediction is that mounting it by default is what virtually
|> everyone
|> wants.
| What I'm guessing most users want to do is add and remove files for use
| on the device itself later, which needs to be done with a front end
| that speaks to the devices library database. Thus I would think most
| users want an _application_ to be able to talk to it, which can be
| accomplished by mounting the device when the application wants it.
|
This is a lot of guessing. It all seems to be centered around how should
we interact with newly attached [storage] devices. I've seen the
discussion numbers of times on this and the other lists and as many
crazy ideas as how to solve the dilemma. I dont believe the answer is
that simple.

Advanced users often prefer to work at the file system level and
interact with storage/mp3/digicams with a file manager and normal/basic
users like to be walked through the process of doing whatever it is they
need to do (normally by an application front-end of some sort).

I dont particularly like the idea of device connection as an
interrupting UI event nor do i like the idea of auto mounting it without
approval or notification (but i dont think asking the user to jump
through hoops to mount/configure the device is an acceptable solution
either). This also seems to be an issue with network interfaces and
virtually any other connected (hot-plug) device.

My proposed solution is a system tray based utility that discreetly
notifies users when new devices are detected and provides them with an
opportunity to mount/configure the device. This way we dont interrupt
the user interface but instead provide them with information to make the
decision with the added benefit of allowing them to make their selected
action permanent in the future.

Devices need not be handled immediately upon notification but can be
delayed until the user has finished the task at hand. Devices would
probably remain in the systray utility until they are configured or
detached from the system again. Perhaps we leave them in there the whole
time and have 3 states of device existence (Newly Attached, Configured,
Removed).

I'd be happy to write up a full mock up of this process if there is any
interest. There are a number of ways i believe we can make the device
initialization and configuration process simpler, unified, elegant and
more powerful at the same time. This is one of the single most important
issues for desktop migration in my opinion. People are ok using whatever
applications as long as they "Just work" the way they want them to but
they are very unwilling to get into the midst of a device configuration
debacle.

Best wishes,
- -mf
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