Am 30.03.2011 19:03, schrieb Adrien Destugues:
Le 30/03/2011 16:56, Jérôme Duval a écrit :2011/3/30 Stephan Aßmus<superstippi@xxxxxx>:I'm thinking Tracker and Deskbar provide not only the access to files and show which apps are running, they are the desktop and the main interaction point with the system level features. I have no problem extending the meaning of an icon in Tracker to represent an object of information, independend of its storage location being local or remote. I can even imagine icons to have more meanings. There are already icons with more virtual, detached from the FS meaning, like the Trash icon or the Disk icon. I can also imagine attached devices to be displayed as icons on the desktop, like a scanner or a printer. IMHO an icon certainly does not have to always represent a local file.
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What this really means is you want Tracker to show other things than files. It doesn't technically require a FS, but would show the need for a new way of integration with Tracker.
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But on the other hand, having it done as a FS allow access for other applications as well, which is what we actually want here :) (sharing contacts between a jabber account and a mail account, for example).
Yes, one thing doesn't necessarily have to do with the other. I was just trying to explain I have no problem with extending the possible meanings of an icon in Tracker or Deskbar, depending on the integration it can provide. That an FS for synchronizing and merging online contact storage could be the most robust implementation is another story.
speaking of this, if each protocol is implemented as a FS, how would sharing contacts work ? This is a feature of the current IM Kit : the same person file can be used as a mail contact or an IM contact (possibly also something else). I don't see how that would work if each protocol is a separate FS, I suppose with a different mountpoint ? Or would we add an overlay to merge them on top of that ? Now isn't that useless obfuscation ? :)
In fact I would be very happy if by merily using Haiku, I would have the cool feature of automatic synchronization of the contacts in my GMX account (the web interface) with my GoogleMail account. So yes, in Haiku I would like to have a single group of contacts. It may be a good idea to make it optional to integrate with each known online contact management accounts, but in general I would find it nice if that would be what happens. It's not obfuscation, IMHO, I can imagine ways of staying in control of this feature. For example, the FS could provide the merged view of all online contact storage locations. Per location, it could be possible to check "automatically publish all shared contacts in this account" and another option to "automatically publish all contacts from this account in other accounts". The FS could even flag each contact with the account it came from, so one can do simple filtering in Tracker.
Best regards, -Stephan
