Feature request/ problem report for file copying in konqueror

jautard yann bricofoy at free.fr
Mon Jul 4 08:14:11 BST 2005


Hello all

I'm NOT subscribed to this list. Please Cc bricofoy at free.fr when answering.



As far as I use konqueror for my file management tasks on my linux 
desktop, I found one thing VERY boring in the way used in konqueror to 
copy/move files. More precisely for folders copy.

I think there is 2 problems with actual copy method. I explain :

1 -  When asking to copy a large folder, with lot of subfolders, 
konqueror first create ALL folders and subfolders, and then copy files 
contained in. Why not creating folders during copy :  when one is fully 
copied, then create and copy files on the next one.
This will be VERY VERY usefull for people that copy very large folders 
with LOTS of files and subfolders trough a very slow connection, and 
experiment lots of disconnections during the copy... When connection 
crashes, how can we know where copy stopped ? Looking each folder size 
on source and destination disk to see if copy is complete is very very 
long and boring when there is lot of data to test !!

2 - This could be a solution for the first problem : when trying to copy 
another time files and folders after a copy crash, Konqueror asks if we 
want to overwrite files previously copied. Ok, that is normal. But the 
problem is with folders : It asks if we want to overwrite entire 
folders, but does'nt look INSIDE folders and ask for files. And the 
problem is here : when copying first time, it as already created 
folders, but copy crashed before finishing, so lots of folders are 
empty. Next time, it just looks if folders exists, so choosing "ignore" 
or "ignore automatically" will result in not copying anything more.
The only way to really finish the copy is to look manually inside all 
folders to see if data is complete or not, and copying manually 
missing/incomplete files.
When copying very large folders ( e.g. a whole disk partition) This is 
quite impossible !
The other solution is to overwrite all, but this is not a great way when 
copying through very slow connection. (e.g. usb 1.1 disk, old network, 
or something like that )


So my feature request is here :

The "ignore automatically" button in the dialog that pops up when files 
exists should say konqueror to look INSIDE folders to see if files 
really exists, not only folders.


This problem is also boring when trying to copy folders with subfolders 
in the same folder on another disk : eg, I want to copy this :


/home/my/
    work/
       monday/
          file2.zz
          file3.yy
       friday/
    games/
       game2/
          play3.save
       game3/

in the following folder :

/mnt/myhomesave/
    work/
        monday/
          file1.zz
    games/
        games1/
        games2/
          play1.save
          play2.save


I think pressing "ignore automatically" button should result in adding 
what missing in the destination folder, e.g. here, the folders and files :


    work/
       monday/
          file2.zz
          file3.yy
       friday/
    games/
       game2/
          play3.save
       game3/

should be added to the destination folder, without erasing anything in 
files previously present in desination folder.

Now if I press "Ignore automatically" or "ignore", nothing is copied, as 
folders work/ and games/ exist, and If I choose "overwrite", it 
overwrite entire folders, so what I got is :

/mnt/myhomesave/
    work/
       monday/
          file2.zz
          file3.yy
       friday/
    games/
       game2/
          play3.save
       game3/

instead of :

/mnt/myhomesave/
    work/
       monday/
          file1.xx
          file2.zz
          file3.yy
       friday/
    games/
       game1/
       game2/
          play1.save
          play2.save
          play3.save
       game3/


I think Microsoft Windows file manager acts in the right way here : when 
coosing "overwrite", it does'nt erase existing files in folders when 
overwriting, just overwrite existing files, and add new ones.
Why konqueror not ?

Thanks for reading this.
And thanks for the great work done in konqueror ;)






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