[haiku-development] Re: Defining more standard attributes

  • From: "Axel Dörfler" <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:55:47 +0100

"Humdinger" <humdingerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> -- Axel Dörfler, on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:03:11 +0100:
> > 1) should we keep the existing Audio:* attributes around, or should
> > we
> > replace them where appropriate?
> > 2) should we use the MIME super type name (like Audio:) as a prefix,
> > and META: for everything that is not media related? Or should we
> > have
> > a
> > Media: prefix for everything that is media related, and covers
> > both,
> > audio and video?
> 2) Replace 'em, I'd say.
> In general, there are a few BeOS legacies that IMO should be
> corrected
> rather sooner than later. This could possibly break a few old BeOS
> apps
> and scripts, but binary compatibilty is way less important now that 5
> years ago.
> By waiting any longer, even more apps will break as more new
> applications arrive.

Well, AFAICT nothing will "break" - it may just update/maintain
outdated or unspecified attributes.

> So, MEDIA:* for audio/video, META:* for use with unspecific files.

So you would prefer an uppercase prefix? Since we already have META:
and BEOS: as system prefixes, this would be kind of consistent.

> Q: Would "rating" be META or MEDIA? It makes sense for images/*,
> audio/*, video/*, text/*. So these would be all "media". But maybe
> you
> want to rate application/x.vnd.Be-elfexecutable, i.e. applications,
> too? Hmmm. In the end, nothing prevents you from assigning any
> META/MEDIA/whatever attribute to anything, so the categories maybe
> don't have to be über-strict, allowing no exceptions. Right?

I think it should be META: then instead of MEDIA:. While it doesn't
have to be that strict in theory, the META: attributes are supposed to
be always addable (from within Tracker), no matter if there is a
matching file or not; ie. any type will fit.
The MEDIA: attributes would only be added to the supported types, that
is audio/, video/, image/, and text/.

Bye,
   Axel.


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