Re: GNOME standard interfaces [Was: Re: GEP 10, again]

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Wed, 2003-05-14 at 00:37, Andrew Sobala wrote:
> > > 
> > > Imagine for example syncing between the GnomeMeeting addressbook, and
> > > the Evolution calendar : you could schedule a meeting with somebody, and
> > > Evolution could propose to the user to try to contact the remote user,
> > > either calling his computer, or calling his phone number if you are
> > > using a provider for PC-To-Phone calls (Phone-To-PC calls could also be
> > > possible).
> > > 
> > in this scenario, I guess a sort of interface should be in place, so
> > that evolution can tell gnomemeeting to open a conference with 'n'
> > people, setup conference options, etc. And this comes up to the
> > 'standard GNOME IDL interfaces' thing, which I think we should start
> > considering more seriously.
> > 
> > For a good integration, we want apps to talk to each other, and having
> > 'just' a URL to start up the app might not be enough in a lot of cases.
> > 
> > And, of course, for that (custom interfaces), the best thing is
> > corba/bonobo, which was created right for the task of making apps
> > communicate with each other.
> 
> There seem to be quite a few people, including myself, who think bonobo
> inter-app communication is the way to go for complex interactions (D-BUS
> also has its place, but probably for simpler message passing).
> 
me also.

> Do we have active GNOME hackers who understand bonobo IDLs and how to
> use it for this purpose?
>
we've got a lot

>  Someone who can actually do the work to draft
> up some interfaces, and is a good engineer and can get the interfaces
> nearly-Right first time? Are there programs that use bonobo to this
> purpose already?
> 
well, getting them right the first time might not be easy, but at least
we can easily start with something and continue the discussion from it.

There was something already started in 1.4's gnome-core (I think),
containing interfaces for a text editor, a terminal, and something else
I don't remember. This could be a good starting point.
If nobody else volunteers, I can at least start some basic interfaces
for, let's say, a text editor, a mail application, a IM/VOIP, ...

> I know I'm revealing my ignorance of the GNOME community, since I've
> only been here for just less than a year. But if we really are serious
> about componentising the desktop, maybe more people need to understand
> and readily use the technology. I don't, and would need more real-life
> applications of it to understand it, and maybe other people feel the
> same.
>
you can then have a look at already existing software, like Nautilus,
Evolution, which use Bonobo, and custom IDL interfaces, for their
purposes.

cheers