Comment 3 for bug 579808

Heh, mid air collision :)

This point was the most discussed in the UDS sessions. It seemed people were divided into two camps:

A. Behaving as a photo *library*. In this case photos are imported (probably copied) into the library and originals are left untouched. The supporters said this was best for professional users (don't mess with my files) and users "who didn't want to know where their files were". iPhoto was frequently used as an example.

B. Behaving as a photo *viewer*. In this case the application provided a better way to browse and modify your photos than a file manager. An example of why this is desired was when you needed to use a photo in a way that the application didn't support. Also commented on was user frustration "where are my photos?", perhaps by users who are more familiar with file interfaces. This was considered old-fashioned by some people.

It was also agreed that we should check with the Shotwell developers to see what metaphor they considered most appropriate - we certainly don't want to demand anything to be a certain way.

My personal feeling is B is the better case. While we all know the file system is outdated it still is a major part of the desktop. If a user sees a photo in the file browser and the same photo in the photo application they will justifiably consider them the same object. Any modifications to that object should be reflected in both the photo application and the file browser.

So to cut a long story short, yes, your solutions sounds good to me:
+1 It follows an existing convention
+1 It means the files can be used elsewhere
+0 It does mean that you see duplicates when browsing other applications

I'll ask around for some more opinions.