File Open dialog does not show mounted servers under Ubuntu

[bnilsson]

The problem arises when accessing a remote server from a Ubuntu platform. On Windows or Mac, remote server volumes are visible in the QFileDialog file browser.
The operating system on the remote server (in your case fedora) seems not important in this case.

[wysota]

The problem arises when accessing a remote server from a Ubuntu platform. On Windows or Mac, remote server volumes are visible in the QFileDialog file browser.
The operating system on the remote server (in your case fedora) seems not important in this case.

Hmm... is it possible that the scope of the visibility of the "mounted servers" in Gnome is adjustable? I mean that one application can see them and the other doesn't? That's the case with KDE's "Places" feature (a place can be global or local to an app), maybe in Gnome it is somehow similar?

[bnilsson]

I now realize I forgot to report that I got the answer of the true cause of the problem.
Below is the response from "Qt bugreports" on this issue.

This is a deeper problem. It happens that QFile by design cannot handle virtual file systems, which is what Gnome uses underneath. Therefore the file dialog explicitly hides the remotes to avoid showing something that will not be usable.

Seems you were right all the time, wysota.
My apologies.

However, my workaround

ln -s .gvfs servers

works fine, virtual file systems or not. I can then open the folder "servers" and access my mounted volumes from there. Maybe the access methods I use is a special case which works anyway.

[wysota]

I think you need to open the folder "servers" prior to accessing it with QFile. I mean you can't do:

QFile file("~/servers/someserver/x/y/z");

QFile file("~/servers/someserver/x/y/z");

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before accessing the bare "servers" directory first, right? The latter will probably mount (as in Unix mount) the server and then anyone can use it as it is part of the real filesystem.

[bnilsson]

I am not sure I follow you, I "communicate" with the file system by QFileDialog only, and browse to the file I want, and supply the output QString to the QFile functions I use.
Unless I make this "server" symlink there is nothing to browse to.
I create the "server" symlink once in my home folder, and it is always there since. If I do "Connect to server" in the "Places" menu it gets a content, otherwise not.
The folder "server" is actually ~/.gvfs, (which might mean 'gnome virtual file system'?)
Actually, I never explicitly checked the content of the string received from

QString fileName = QFileDialog::getOpenFileName

after I have selected a file in a remote volume, so I do not know how it is expressed, abnd if there are any potential problems.
But yes, the server needs to be mounted before it can be accessed by QFileDialog thru its mountpoint in the ~/.gvfs.

[wysota]

I am not sure I follow you, I "communicate" with the file system by QFileDialog only, and browse to the file I want, and supply the output QString to the QFile functions I use.
Unless I make this "server" symlink there is nothing to browse to.

No, it's not what I mean. I don't use Gnome on a daily basis so I don't know exactly how the file dialog from it looks like but I guess it probably has a field where you can enter the directory path you want to browse. Now my guess is that if you enter some subdirectory of your "server" symlink without going explicitly through the "server" directory (like you do when browsing by clicking on directories in the list) your workaround will not work because there will be nothing "under" '~/server'. The same way it will not work when explicitly assigning a path to a QFile without the use of QFileDialog (like when accessing a "recent" file or some other setting that was stored some time in the past).

Your workaround is probably similar to clicking on the .gvfs entry directly, after all a soft-link is just an alias to some other inode.

[bnilsson]

Well, communication is difficult sometimes.
The symlink "servers" is created by me, and represents ~/.gvfs, just because "dot-files" are normally hidden by the gui, and thus also to QFileDialog.
And the workaround does actually work, this is the way I use it now. It's just too bad I need a 'hack' like this...

[wysota]

The symlink "servers" is created by me, and represents ~/.gvfs,

I understand that.

just because "dot-files" are normally hidden by the gui, and thus also to QFileDialog.

You can instruct QFileDialog to show them.

And the workaround does actually work, this is the way I use it now. It's just too bad I need a 'hack' like this...

It works because of the way you use it. If this software is just for you then that's not a problem. But if you intend others to use it, their way of doing things might be different than yours and your workaround may fail (even on the same computer system).

[bnilsson]

You can instruct QFileDialog to show them.

Great! How do I do this?
Apparently, I must have missed this item in the Assistant docs.

[wysota]

Hmm... I thought there was an API for it but apparently there is none. Anyway, when the gnome dialog is open you can right click it and check "show hidden files".

[totem]

Hmm... I thought there was an API for it but apparently there is none. Anyway, when the gnome dialog is open you can right click it and check "show hidden files".

what about QFileDialog::setFilter ( ... | QDir::Hidden | .. ) ?

[bnilsson]

what about QFileDialog::setFilter ( ... | QDir::Hidden | .. ) ?

Tried that, and it doesn't seem to work reliably.
I think "right-click show hidden files" in the dialog is overriding it.
Anyway, I was ignorant about the "right-click show hidden files" method, this seems to solve the issue.

Thanks for all your assistance.