Re: New module proposal: tracker

[Philip Van Hoof <spam pvanhoof be>]

On Thu, 2009-11-05 at 15:15 +0100, Marko Anastasov wrote:

> 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.

I'd like to point out that this type of 'raw search' is in my opinion
the least interesting use-case for what you can use Tracker for.

I also think that a 'raw search' like Google's 

"search textbox" [Search]  ...

That then displays every kind of thing that matches, is the worst kind
of UI design for a desktop imaginable. Even Google allows you to say
"search in News, Search in messages, search in videos, search in ..".

A much more interesting "search" usecase is guided search:

Few users enter zero context about what they want to find before they
start searching things.

Just the mere action of indicating that you want conversations already
adds valuable context to what the person wants to find.

The action of going to the calendar of the desktop is context about what
the person wants to find. If he recently searched for a context, chances
are that he wants you to sort calendars relevant to that contact first.

The fact that his computer has a clock adds context about what the
person wants to see. It probably also adds context about the sorting
order (most recent first).

I find it hard to imagine that our application developers are staring
with horse eyeflaps at google.com and then think:

This is the only way to help a user find stuff!

That can't be true. Right?

With Nepomuk as ontology you have an enormous amount of relationships,
context and data itself. The 'raw search' is a search on just the data. 

The relationships are much more useful.



-- 
Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://pvanhoof.be/blog
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