Use of tracker to search for files

[bonanza123]

I know there are already several proposals to modify/improve the scanning of readable documents. As i haven't found this one yet, i wanted to propose the use of sailfishs tracker which scans automatically several folder and can be adjusted manually using the corresponding configuration file if need be.

[monich]

Honestly, I don't like the idea of automatically finding stuff, e.g. if the image downloaded by the email client automatically shows up in the gallery. What if I don't want my gallery to be filled with the email junk but there's no way to turn that off. Bummer!

In this app, the book folders exactly match the filesystem hierarchy. The app doesn't invent its own way of organizing files into folders - it's using the one provided by the filesystem (there's no UI to create folders yet but if you create one yourself, it shows up in the app)

I see only one possible use for tracker in this app - to scan the filesystem for the new books that have not yet been copied (or hard-linked) to the app's directory tree, i.e. the "Check Downloads" view (which in that case would have to be renamed into "Check for new books" or something). Even that is questionable. In other words, I'm not overly enthusiastic about it.

[bonanza123]

Thanks for your reply!
I just want to describe my use case, where I (please correct me if I'm missing something) guess that the tracker approach would be the best:
I have a nextcloud server where I put my e-books, e-papers, audio books etc and sync them to all my devices. As I haven't found a good nextcloud client for SFOS yet, I'm using the android version and it stores the books in:

~/android_storage/nextlcoud/username@server/publisher1/yearX/
~/android_storage/nextlcoud/username@server/publisher1/yearY/
..
~/android_storage/nextlcoud/username@server/publisher2/yearX/
~/android_storage/nextlcoud/username@server/publisher2/yearY/
..

I configured the tracker to (recursively) scan for all files in ~/android_storage/nextcloud which enables me to use the SFOS media app for audio books and the SFOS documents app for synced PDFs.
The only that that is missing an app to open the non-PDF ebooks (that where your nice app comes in ;-)).

I understand that you (and most likely also some others) don't like the tracker approach, but would it maybe be an alternative to let the user choose between the options to search/find ebooks? So some users could then use the current approach and some the tracker approach.

[monich]

Do you want the books to appear and disappear to match the contents of the sync folder or would it be enough for "Check downloads" to scan the entire ~/android_storage tree and allow you to copy the books from there? The latter might be doable, the app is already checking ~/android_storage/Download

[bonanza123]

I actually would prefer not to copy the books, meaning they should appear/disappear whenever I sync/remove synced files from the nextcloud client.