Re: Proposing Tracker for inclusion into GNOME 2.18

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

Dan Winship wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 21:26 +0100, Jamie McCracken wrote:
> > First to clarify, tracker is not a dedicated indexer (like Beagle and 
> > Strigi) but is first and foremost a database which has indexing as a 
> > side feature.
>
> Are there any *currently existing* GNOME applications that make use of
> tracker's data store? 

not as yet but they are being planned


Has there been any interest coming *from
> application authors* for porting their apps to use the tracker data
> store? 

yes RhythmBox maintainer is quite happy to use tracker as its common 
music database and as Rhythmbox is not part of gnome desktop it only 
needs his permission. Hes also built a plugin for rhythmbox to get music 
files from tracker:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/tracker-list/2006-October/msg00176.html



You talked about porting epiphany to store its bookmarks in
> tracker, but I can't find anything evidence either that (a) you've
> actually tried this yet and verified that it works well,

the spec for that is not finished but yes it will work well from what I 
can see. I cant go ahead and implement this without tracker either being 
in the Desktop or an approved dependency so its on the back burner until 
thats sorted out.

 or (b) any of
> the epiphany developers has expressed any interest in adopting tracker
> as a bookmark storage (regardless of whether or not tracker is accepted
> into GNOME).

see thread : 
http://www.mail-archive.com/epiphany-list gnome org/msg01410.html


> (For a contrast, look at Leaftag, which only does a tiny subset of what
> tracker promises, but which the deskbar and tomboy maintainers were both
> quite excited about integrating with
> (http://raphael.slinckx.net/blog/2006-03-06/deskbar-and-leaftag-last-exit, http://beatniksoftware.com/pipermail/tomboy-list_beatniksoftware.com/2006-March/001119.html)
> That's the sort of real-world evidence that people are looking for
> here.)

the maintainer of leaftag told me he wants to concentrate on front end 
tools and let tracker manage the backend if it gets into Gnome.

> If indexing is only a "side feature" of tracker, and no one is using any
> of its "real" features, then tracker is completely unproven technology.

tracker is being used as a nautilus search and deskbar backend  so its 
already integrated in Gnome.

The only thing slowing down further integration is getting into gnome or 
being an accepeted dependency - hopefully a chicken and egg situation 
can be avoided here


--
Mr Jamie McCracken
http://jamiemcc.livejournal.com/