Re: New module proposal: tracker

[Marko Anastasov <marko anastasov gmail com>]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Alberto Ruiz <aruiz gnome org> wrote:
> 2009/10/30 Jamie McCracken <jamie mccrack googlemail com>:
>>> > The way I see it is if Gnome wants to be in a position to challenge OS/X
>>> > and Windows 7 then it needs to make bold decisions. Playing it safe
>>> > means it will stagnate and Gnome will miss out on all the cool
>>> > technology.
>>>
>>> This is kinda hyperbole - not really useful. But, hey, did you know that
>>> monitor hotplug in GNOME almost works as well as in Windows 95 now? -
>>> That is, if your video driver works with your hardware ;-)
>>
>>
>> Its not hyperbole - if gnome is not going to modernise I have little
>> option but to create my own desktop to get a modern sleek desktop.
>
> Jamie, as much as I would like to see Tracker on the desktop myself,
> this is not the way to prove the point. Innovation and new cool
> features is by no means what drives wider adoption and success;
> stability, empowering and caring about ISVs and consistency are way
> more important. New stuff is part of the key indeed. But let's
> -do-it-because-all-the-kids-on-the-block-are is not an argument most
> of us are going to buy.
>
> We should not add features just because they are cool, there are other
> criteria that we must follow and we should be careful on how do we add
> those features or we'll end up bloating our project.

As someone who has developed an application based on Tracker [*] I'd
like to ask something.

Perhaps the discussion should be around very simple use cases which
are possible to implement quickly. For example, do the Gnome people
think that the desktop should include tags? If yes then Tracker should
be included as a desktop module to store them (with all the
obligations for its API), giving Nautilus the material to slightly
modify its UI to include tags. I think that it's an important change
(step forward) and cannot be a matter of --enable-tracker.

When I started working on PaperBox in 2007 it was kind of an
experiment but one thought that I had was that tags will eventually be
part of the desktop, adding additional value to the traditional file
and directory structure. Almost three years later the only application
that people (usually) have installed which does tag CRUD is still
tracker-search-tool. The internals and APIs of Tracker have been
completely redesigned, and while it's not a blessed part of the Gnome
platform and some long term vision I do not think that I will be
spending my free time experimenting with it.

Another simple use case is search. Does it matter? Is typing a few
characters in a text field and getting a list of applications, files
and bookmarks useful? Do you think that it should be extensible, so
that application developers can make that search include notes,
favorite songs, contacts? Gnome still doesn't have an official indexer
(with an API) and a search GUI.

  Marko

[*] http://live.gnome.org/PaperBox