I really like a lot NextCloud, many thanks for your work on it!
But while there is ongoing development with new versions delivered in short periods, I think there could be also some polishment of already settled functionality.
I am facing these problems on daily basis although they were reported long ago by other users:
1/ bad free space calculation with very annoying notification. One thing is the bad calculation. Although I can clearly see right free space in System overview I can understand that this could be dificult (as I have symlinked external Samba storage). But is it really difficult to make an option to turn this notice off?
2/ is it possible to make a context menu item in Files app to rescan selected folder? It would be much more comfortable then ssh to underlaying os and running occ.
3/ it would be great if I can e.g. have my photos backed up from phone in some folder and create from it âthe special selectionâ by symlink them elswhere. While I already can do that by ssh to underlaying OS and make it manually, it could be perfect to do it right in Files App. Today I have option to COPY or to MOVE. If there will be also SYMLINK option⊠Wow, that will be the shine on actual functionality of File App.
So, please donât be offended, I really appreciate your great work and mentioned just these few ideas to make NC little bit better
in general I agree Nextcloud development is focused to much on new features and there is lack of polish and resolving old issues, but allow me to disagree with your wishes. Every application is designed to operate in a specific environment. In case of Nextcloud this is a database and local storage where it has exclusive access. fiddling with the storage is not part of regular operations and I would strongly argue against adding options for occ files:scan, symlinks and similar functions in the WebUI⊠this must remain reserved for admins performing specific task like restore and system repairâŠ
If you need some special handling during your daily operations likely your system design is not right⊠feel free to describe the reasons why you do some of this tasks - chances are there smart people in the forum will show you the right way to works with this applicationâŠ
Normally this feature is not needed. Use Nextcloud and WebDAV and then you must not re-scan. Do not use other protocols eâŠg sftp to manipulate the data directory of Nextcloud.
If the admin uses a file system with deduplication (-> incremental backup also) then the feature is not needed.
Would you apply that to files in external storage? The reason I ask is that Iâve set things up so that one set of files is on a different filesystem both for ease of backups and to allow access from third party apps. Specifically, GIMP and darktable need easy local access.
Hello and thanks for the insight. I can understand that philosophy soâŠ
ad 1/ YES, the best solution will be to correct freespace miscalculations in NC as it looks like really old problem mentioned in few threads. Usually they are closed like âit is SMB problem, we cannot do anythingâ. Well, but why then there are correct sizes in System overview? And if I have feature, that is at most not so sturdy, why to insist on forcing its usage? As it is meant for admin, why not give the admin the option to turn off at least this warning (as he even knows already).
Another thing is, that it bothers with every single file operation - you are traversing through files and look - there are three notices about lack of space (although there is no such lack). Shouldnât be this in log instead? Why we have log levels if we put this out of log, to the UI and in the most bothering way?
Ad 2/ you are again right. I thought about fastest way to deal with the problem. Probably better solution is to make a cron job or some hook. Sry to bother.
Ad 3/ I have a folder with data and folder with shares. E.g. /books and /shares. Then here comes Jane and I want to share some my books with her. So I want to create /share/books_jane and symlink some books there to create selection for her. I donât want to copy or move those books. I have it in categories etc. for backup. Another scenario: I am on a boat trip or at a party. Have a few gigs of videos and photos. Again, I wonât to duplicate them as the space is not infinite. I wonât to move them, as I already have some organization system carefully backed up. This is my user POV. I donât want to go underneath to ssh in and symlink manually. You have links as a basic feature in Windows OS and in Linux also (although I admit that it makes some confusion between newbies).
2/ I donât want copies, I just want to organize data. If I as a user want to link some file to elsewhere, I have the information about that it is linked. When I make change to original, that changes also the linked destination. On system with deduplication, I make a copy and then? I have to remember all those copies and maintain all changes, or?
I am sorry for my lack of knowledge, I didnât use any such fs yetâŠ
I donât know if GIMP and darktable do something special⊠usually you can work on files inside your local Nextcloud folder synced by desktop client (but there are exception when local applications update massive number of files within short time). if you hit this issue you might want to sync the files to the cloud using WebDAVâŠ
you bring up some some valid points⊠regarding sharing Ad /3 symlinks could be better than current solution but only for this specific use case. latest when somebody shares documents with write access symlinks could become a nightmare (think about âconfusion between newbiesâ).
In general the system must be easy to use and donât confuse the user⊠and from the DEVs point of view there are more things to care about: object storage like S3 supported for backend doesnât support symlinks AFAIK⊠what is about deleting such files? versions? softlinks and hardlinks are different in this term - which kind do you support? both? test every possible combination? so many complexity to cover very specific use case?
The issue is that you end up with four copies of each photo: raw and JPEG in /Cloud/... and the same again in $HOME/NextCloud/.... Just easier to access the cloudy ones directly and ensure that you only have one master version. OK, not massive (31 MiB for the raw and 11 MiB for the JPEG), but with hundreds of photos it works out at quite a few GiB.
