RFC: disabled (or not yet enabled) collections in the browser

[Bart Cerneels]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 15:37, Bart Cerneels <bart.cerneels at kde.org> wrote:
> I want to make it possible to list a collection in the CB but not
> actually enable it until the user has clicked on the collection root
> item.
>
> Use case for this:
>
> - UMS Collection is not scanned by default (huge resource drain). It's
> already listed in the CB but without tracks until the "Scan device"
> action is triggered. That action is only shown if the mouse is over
> the root item because it would cause to much visual clutter if always
> visible. As long as the collection is not enabled though there is no
> byline text either.
> If the root item would show "click to start scanning" it would be a
> lot easier to use for novice users already.
>
> - Nikhil's UPnP collection also needs to scan if the mediaserver does
> not support Search. This "directory-walking" uses network, CPU and
> memory resources in a serious intensive way. If a couple, or one very
> large, search-less UPnP mediaservers are on the network, this could
> bring amarok to it's knees. The user will click servers that really
> should be scanned.
>
>
> Currently the byline (text underneath the collection's name) is
> hardcoded to show track count. I would like to change this to show a
> different text when the collection is disabled and trigger some action
> when the item is clicked.
>
> I plan to add a state to Collection and use it in the browser with a
> hardcoded string. When state == disabled some function will be
> triggered to enable a collection ( perhaps re-using
> startIncrementalScan() ).
>
> Does anyone have a different use case that requires a custom byline?
> Perhaps we should not hardcode any of the bylines.
>
> Bart
>

To come back to this ancient topic:
Rick (stuffcorpse) has implemented plugin enabling. So we can
brute-force disable some collections already, by not loading it's
plugin. Next step is disable on a resource level (for instance, UPnP
server A but not B).
Should we make this a GSoC project?

Bart