[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#876178: "Browse Network" gives difficult error message, consider recommending gvfs-backends

[chrysn]

Package: thunar
Version: 1.6.12-1
Severity: wishlist

Hello Thunar maintainers,

please consider recommending gvfs-backends in from Thunar. AFAICT, in a
default xfce4 installation, Thunar displays the "Browse Network"
(network://) area in its sidebar, but lacks the backends to actually
open it (message 'Failed to open "/ on ".' / 'The specified location is
not supported').

If you deem gvfs-backends too heavyweight for an XFCE4 desktop (I
counted 9 new packages on a almost fresh install: libcdio-...,
libgdata..., libgoa..., libnfs8, liboauth0, psmisc), please let me know
and I'd rephrase this as a bug against gvfs-backends, "please provide a
gvfs-backends-light" or similar (at least SSHFS and WebDAV are IMO
reasonably to be expected from a network-enabled distribution).

Other alternatives I'd see is giving a more descriptive error message
with installation instructions (of whose difficulties to get it right
upstream and cross-distribution I'm aware, thus my initial suggestion),
or hiding the network area completely when not supported.

Thanks for maintaining Thunar
chrysn

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental-debug'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.12.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages thunar depends on:
ii  desktop-file-utils  0.23-2
ii  exo-utils           0.10.7-1
ii  libatk1.0-0         2.26.0-2
ii  libc6               2.24-17
ii  libcairo2           1.15.8-0.1
ii  libdbus-1-3         1.11.16+really1.10.22-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2    0.108-2
ii  libexo-1-0          0.10.7-1
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0  2.36.5-4
ii  libglib2.0-0        2.54.0-1
ii  libgtk2.0-0         2.24.31-2
ii  libgudev-1.0-0      232-1
ii  libice6             2:1.0.9-2
ii  libnotify4          0.7.7-2
ii  libpango-1.0-0      1.40.12-1
ii  libsm6              2:1.2.2-1+b3
ii  libthunarx-2-0      1.6.12-1
ii  libxfce4ui-1-0      4.12.1-2
ii  libxfce4util7       4.12.1-3
ii  libxfconf-0-2       4.12.1-1
ii  shared-mime-info    1.8-1
ii  thunar-data         1.6.12-1

Versions of packages thunar recommends:
ii  dbus-user-session [default-dbus-session-bus]  1.11.16+really1.10.22-1
ii  dbus-x11 [dbus-session-bus]                   1.11.16+really1.10.22-1
ii  gvfs                                          1.30.4-1+b1
ii  libfontconfig1                                2.12.3-0.2
ii  libfreetype6                                  2.8-0.2
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0                           1.40.12-1
ii  libpangoft2-1.0-0                             1.40.12-1
ii  thunar-volman                                 0.8.1-2
ii  tumbler                                       0.1.32-1
ii  xdg-user-dirs                                 0.15-3
ii  xfce4-panel                                   4.12.1-2

Versions of packages thunar suggests:
ii  thunar-archive-plugin     0.3.1-4
ii  thunar-media-tags-plugin  0.2.1-1+b2

-- no debconf information

-- 
To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers.
  -- Bene Gesserit axiom
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