A Trash folder for deleted recordings

[drain]

Has anyone suggested a 'Trash' folder - where deleted recordings are moved to, like the windows recycle-bin?

The one advantage of video-tape is that the recording is not erased until you record over it. The other month, my brother-in-law phoned to ask if I had Lost on tape because he forgot to record it. (Of course I said: no, not on tape, but I can cut you a DVD!) In this case he was lucky, but normally we would have deleted the recording immediately after watching it.

If recordings were moved to a “Trash” folder, then deleted recording could be recovered in unexpected situations like this, or when a recording is deleted by accident (a delete confirmation screen would not be required).

I envisage the Trash folder appearing on the recordings screen like the Ready and Pending recordings. The recording service would delete items from the Trash folder when either:
- disk space goes below a user defined limit, say 10 GB.
- recordings are older than a user defined time, say 7 days.
- recordings are manually removed, or the entire folder is “emptied”

Any comments?

[jorm]

that is interesting. We can code it into the video plugins like xrecord. The only issue is when it goes under the disk space limit, since the plugins can only run after a recording, epg update or when the user is it them.

Since most recordings are 2-4 gigs using postprocessing would probably work. If enough people think this is useful I can add it to xrecord.

[Jeff]

Plug-ins can also set timers so that they run periodically on their own and they can install mpnitors to look for the creation and deltion of files (which would change the amount of free space). That is what I do in the video archive plug-in for various things.

Jeff

[jorm]

Perhaps we write a recycle bin plugin not part of any video plugin, it allows you to view and restore things from the recycle bin. It will have the cleanup logic and stuff.

We then write a helper class that will move on delete to the recycle bin.

The helper class would be used by xrecord, video archiver and my videos.
It would be useful and would avoid more duplication.

Jorm

[lseats]

I agree this would be a good addition. What I do now is have the postprocessing.bat file copy every recording to a backup drive. That way I can keep the recordings list clean and still be able to get any recording back that I find I need later. The other benefit is that if I have a drive crash on my recording drive I always have a backup of the current shows. Here is the line I use in postprocessing.bat so the copy runs at a low priority and doesn't tax the cpu or recording drive:

start /low copy %1 D:\backup\

You would of course use whatever drive and folder you want to use.

[jasjol]

I like this idea of a trach can.


Maybe with an option on which folder and disk it should be on.

[drain]

Perhaps we write a recycle bin plugin not part of any video plugin, it allows you to view and restore things from the recycle bin. It will have the cleanup logic and stuff.

Now there's some thinking for you! I like this "holistic" approach!

[reven]

how about we just throw everything into windows "recycling bin", that way its handled by windows. of course im assuming this is possible via c# (i think windows recycling bin is just a special folder....).

[Jeff]

I think all you do is move files to Drive:\Recycled. Of course there are windows settings that let the user specifiy if all drives share a common recycle bin and, on a drive by drive basis, if files are deleted or recycled so there may be a bit more to it than just this.


[EDIT] NEver mind; see http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/csdoesshell2.asp for an example of how it is done. Messy.

Jeff

[reven]

well all we need is someone to write a dll for this action, say
public bool DeleteFile(string file){} // returns true if successful delete
public bool DeleteFolder(string folder){}// ditto.