recognizing changes in files

[Martin (KDE)]

Am Donnerstag, 1. Januar 2009 schrieb Mark Kretschmann:
> On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Martin (KDE) <kde at fahrendorf.de> 
wrote:
> > Am Donnerstag, 1. Januar 2009 schrieb Mark Kretschmann:
> >> On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 11:48 AM, Martin (KDE)
> >> <kde at fahrendorf.de>
> >
> > wrote:
> >> > due to the problem with changing tags in amarok (speed down) I
> >> > use kid3 for now. The Problem: the changes are not recognized
> >> > by amarok. The tags are written to the files (verified with
> >> > id3info). The timestamps of the files have changed. but amarok
> >> > shows, neither from the collection tab nor from the file tab
> >> > the correct tags. I have to run a collection rescan to get
> >> > updated most of the tags. And I have to restart amarok to show
> >> > all tags the way they are.
> >> >
> >> > I use Amarok 2.0 on KDE 4.1.3, fedora 10, collection is on a
> >> > NFS volume
> >>
> >> Amarok detects collection changes by detecting changed directory
> >> "mtime" values. To get a certain directory rescanned (if it
> >> doesn't happen automatically), just "touch" (Unix command) the
> >> parent directory, and then click "Update Collection".
> >
> > AFAIK mtime (modify time) of a directory is only changed if a
> > file is added or removed. If file content changed none of the
> > parent directory's times are changed (At least on my system).
> > Only file times are changed.
>
> Yes, our system isn't perfect, but "good enough" for most common
> cases. We haven't changed the system from Amarok 1; it's basically
> still working the same way in Amarok 2, because it worked out
> pretty well for most users.
>
> Ideally we would track the mtime of each file in the collection,
> but this would simply have too much impact on performance.

It is not a major problem. I simply was not aware of this. With amarok 
1.4 I have done every tag changing within amarok. Due to the 
performance problem stated by Johannes Schwall two days ago, I am 
forced to use a alternative way. I have to touch the directory 
afterwards.

Maybe there is a way to check the mtime of all files by user 
interaction additionally of reading all files again.

So
- automatically check directory changes
- on user request check file changes
- on user request reread whole collection

Martin