[Flickrfs-users] filesystem layout

[Paul P. <pe...@ee...>]

FlickrFS is really cool, but after playing around with it a bit I feel
like it's also missing some pieces.  It would be nice if there were a
direct interface into the photostream, as well as a way to edit the
metadata directly.  I'd like to suggest one possible filesystem layout,
just for the sake of discussion:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
/flickrfs_mount
   stream/
      metadata/
         photo\ title\ 1/
            tags        # ASCII file containing list of tags
            sets        # ASCII file containing sets for this photo
            description # ASCII file containing photo description
         photo\ title\ 2/
            tags
            sets
            description
         photo\ title\ 3/
            tags
            sets
            description
         ...
      photo\ title\ 1   # jpeg files
      photo\ title\ 2
      photo\ title\ 3
      ...
   tags/
      ...      # as implemented currently
   sets/
      ...      # as implemented currently
------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the idea here is that the stream/ directory is sort of a primary
interface, with a metadata/ subdir that lets the user change the
metadata for any of the photos.  (It would be even nicer to have a
ReiserFS 4-style system for handling metadata...)  Dropping a new photo
into stream/ should (1) upload the file and (2) add blank entries to the
proper location in stream/metadata/ .

Note that I'm no filesystem expert, so I'm pretty clueless when it comes
to the technical limitations of something like this.

Also, it feels a bit inelegant to have to set the permissions of a photo
*before* copying it into the flickr FS.  It would be nice to be able to
change the permissions on pre-existing photos in-place.

Paul