[FEATURE] better GUI for multiple sync points

[jdpipe]

Thanks for all your work on this nice tool!
I've used this GUI to streamline sync of folders shared via a company Teams service, and it works pretty well in general.
A key criticism/issue however would be that each project team that I'm a part of needs a separate 'profile' in onedrive-cli and then I need to 'switch the mode' of the GUI for each sync point in turn. It would be really nice if the GUI could be redeveloped to better support this multi-sync use-case. What would be ideal would be if this GUI could sit as a tray service and continually synchronise all of my project folders, alerting me when a new file is received, along with the project it's coming from.
Would also be great to see some native packaging of the tool for Ubuntu!
Did you know the Thunderbird team is working meanwhile on adding direct sync of Microsoft 365 email accounts now also? I expect we'll see increased focus of user on these tools in coming months...

[bpozdena]

@jdpipe thanks for your feedback.

It would be really nice if the GUI could be redeveloped to better support this multi-sync use-case.

I'm not sure I understand the your requirements. Can you provide more details? OneDriveGUI does not have any specific limit on how many onedrive profiles/accounts you can have. You can configure many profiles and have each start sync automatically after the GUI starts.

What would be ideal would be if this GUI could sit as a tray service and continually synchronise all of my project folders, alerting me when a new file is received, along with the project it's coming from.

I do not plan to add any kind of notification system into the GUI as the notifications are handled by the onedrive client.
I could perhaps add some extra functionality to the system tray, which would show you which accounts are currently syncing and allow you to start/stop them from there? This would probably accommodate the request in #151 as well.

Would also be great to see some native packaging of the tool for Ubuntu!

I agree, but I can't dedicate my time to creating packages for all possible Linux distributions. I will only continue to support AppImage format as it works universally across all distributions with minimal downsides.

[jdpipe]

Thanks for the replies! Following up,
On 30/10/24 19:08, Boris Pozdena wrote:

@jdpipe thanks for your feedback.

It would be really nice if the GUI could be redeveloped to better support this multi-sync use-case.

I'm not sure I understand the your requirements. Can you provide more details? OneDriveGUI does not have any specific limit on how many onedrive profiles/accounts you can have. You can configure many profiles and have each start sync automatically after the GUI starts.

It was more that the GUI shows sync activity only for one profile at a time. I might have five or ten profiles active -- all with the same email address/account name, but different project folders in Teams. In that case, I must switched the GUI from one profile to another via a very small button in the corner of the window, and as such the GUI doesn't function effectively to give me a visual overview what's happening across the multiple profiles.

Actually, I had assumed that the syncing was only happening for one profile at a time (because I could only see one at a time) -- analogous to how Teams (for Linux, at least) only lets you sign in to one account at a time, and only lets you see one team at a time.

What would be ideal would be if this GUI could sit as a tray service and continually synchronise all of my project folders, alerting me when a new file is received, along with the project it's coming from.

I do not plan to add any kind of notification system into the GUI as the notifications are handled by the onedrive client.
I could perhaps add some extra functionality to the system tray, which would show you which accounts are currently syncing and allow you to start/stop them from there? This would probably accommodate the request in #151 as well.

FWIW I don't get any GUI notifications from onedrive-cli. Maybe I set it up wrong, or maybe I need to get new versions of things. But it seems strange/unexpected to me that a CLI would handle GUI notifications.

I do see that when I am running the OneDrive GUI, there is a stream of text coming up in my console. Perhaps the notifications are designed appear via the GUI if the client was not launched in a TTY?

Would also be great to see some native packaging of the tool for Ubuntu!

I agree, but I can't dedicate my time to creating packages for all possible Linux distributions. I will only continue to support AppImage format as it works universally across all distributions with minimal downsides.

I understand. It's hard to advance a project while also looking after all the distro-specific packaging issues. Hopefully someone else will pick up the challenge.

Because I have the AppImage, I launch the GUI it via a terminal window (~/.local/bin/One[tab][enter]...), and maybe that approach affects other things above?

[jdpipe]

I guess a related comment is that the onedrive-cli (at least the version I have) doesn't yet do a great job of connecting multiple Teams folders in a nice easy way. Would be awesome if the could be discoverable via the GUI -- for the GUI to take on the job of listing the available project folders and allowing selection from a list. Again, maybe you've already implemented that; I'm not yet using the current version (issues of onedrive-cli Ubuntu packaging...)

[bpozdena]

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by 'Teams folder' or what your onedrive file structure looks like. However, the onedrive client supports the below options which you can choose from. It will be up to you to choose whichever method is most suitable for your use case:

A) Have multiple separate onedrive accounts, each with it's own files.
B) Use Shared items/folders: https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/business-shared-items.md
C) Use Sharepoint Libraries: https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/sharepoint-libraries.md

[abraunegg]

@jdpipe

FWIW I don't get any GUI notifications from onedrive-cli.
.........
I guess a related comment is that the onedrive-cli

The application 'onedrive-cli' is a Ubuntu Snap ... https://snapcraft.io/onedrive-cli

This is a 'wrapper' around 'onedrive' (which is the correct application to use - https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive) and chains a number of aspects, but more importantly the person providing the snap is rebuilding the client, and most likely not enabling the correct options at compile time to support notifications.

If you are using this Ubuntu Snap .. please stop using it and install the client in the correct manner for Ubuntu platforms .

From your closed issue on the Snap Providers GitHub site (boukendesho/onedrive-cli-snap#1)
you are also potentially still using on obsolete and unsupported Ubuntu version (18.x)

My advice to you is:

• Move to a more modern Ubuntu version
• Stop using the Ubuntu Snap
• Install the client the correct way for Ubuntu if you wish to stay with that distribution

[abraunegg]

@jdpipe
On the GUI Notifications side:

GUI Notifications are compiled in:

GUI Notifications are not used as per highlights when using 'onedrive-cli'

My thoughts are that the Ubuntu Snaps do not have access to local dbus messaging frameworks that allow the GUI notifications to occur.

Now .. if you use the correct application - installed as per https://github.com/abraunegg/onedrive/blob/master/docs/ubuntu-package-install.md

Essentially 4 commands (example Ubuntu 24.04):

wget -qO - https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-ubuntu-onedrive/xUbuntu_24.04/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/obs-onedrive.gpg > /dev/null
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/obs-onedrive.gpg] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-ubuntu-onedrive/xUbuntu_24.04/ ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/onedrive.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends --no-install-suggests onedrive

and an example of a GUI notification: