Bug#756297: gedit: Show a warning dialog when opening large files (>50kB?) to prevent extreme slowdown

[David Z]

Package: gedit
Version: 3.4.2-1
Severity: wishlist
Tags: upstream

Dear Maintainer,

I've had some near-disasters occur when I've accidentally opened large files
with gedit. Even a file as small as 40kB can drive gedit to very high CPU and
memory usage for a couple minutes. If it's a file that's tens of megabytes, it
can go on for quite a while...

I would definitely appreciate it if gedit checked the size of a file to be
opened, and if it's above a certain size (I would suggest 50kB, but as low as
20kB may be appropriate), a dialog popup was offered saying something like,
"The file you're trying to open is very large, and may cause gedit to hang for
a long time while it is opened. Are you sure you want to open this file with
gedit? [Yes] / [No]".

This is mostly an issue because of gedit's tabbing feature, which means that if
I want to kill the process, I am also killing other, potentially important
documents being edited. Another acceptable fix (to me), though certainly much
more difficult to implement (for you wonderful developers), would be to make
each tab a separate process.

Thank you for the work that you do on this wonderful software - may the next
thing you drink be immensely refreshing!



-- Package-specific info:
Active plugins:
  - 'spell'
  -  'time'
  -  'docinfo'
  -  'modelines'
  -  'filebrowser'
  -  'joinlines'

No plugin installed in $HOME.

Module versions:
  - glib                  2.32.4
  - gtk+                  3.4.2
  - gtksourceview         
  - pygobject             
  - enchant               
  - iso-codes             3.41


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.6
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable'), (300, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages gedit depends on:
ii  gedit-common               3.4.2-1
ii  gir1.2-atk-1.0             2.4.0-2
ii  gir1.2-freedesktop         1.32.1-1
ii  gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0       2.26.1-1
ii  gir1.2-glib-2.0            1.32.1-1
ii  gir1.2-gtk-3.0             3.4.2-7
ii  gir1.2-gtksource-3.0       3.4.2-1
ii  gir1.2-pango-1.0           1.30.0-1
ii  gir1.2-peas-1.0            1.4.0-2
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas  3.4.2-3
ii  iso-codes                  3.41-1
ii  libatk1.0-0                2.4.0-2
ii  libc6                      2.13-38+deb7u3
ii  libcairo-gobject2          1.12.2-3
ii  libcairo2                  1.12.2-3
ii  libenchant1c2a             1.6.0-7
ii  libffi5                    3.0.10-3
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0         2.26.1-1
ii  libgirepository-1.0-1      1.32.1-1
ii  libglib2.0-0               2.33.12+really2.32.4-5
ii  libgtk-3-0                 3.4.2-7
ii  libgtksourceview-3.0-0     3.4.2-1
ii  libice6                    2:1.0.8-2
ii  libpango1.0-0              1.30.0-1
ii  libpeas-1.0-0              1.4.0-2
ii  libsm6                     2:1.2.1-2
ii  libx11-6                   2:1.5.0-1+deb7u1
ii  libxml2                    2.8.0+dfsg1-7+wheezy1
ii  python                     2.7.3-4+deb7u1
ii  python-gi                  3.2.2-2
ii  python-gi-cairo            3.2.2-2
ii  python2.7                  2.7.3-6+deb7u2

Versions of packages gedit recommends:
ii  yelp    3.4.2-1+b1
ii  zenity  3.4.0-2

Versions of packages gedit suggests:
ii  gedit-plugins  3.4.0-1

-- no debconf information