Re: [Evolution-hackers] Regarding ESource and ESourceExtension

[Mathias Hasselmann <mathias openismus com>]

Am Montag, den 08.10.2012, 07:55 -0400 schrieb Matthew Barnes:
> On Mon, 2012-10-08 at 18:40 +0900, Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> > Is it intended that the frontend must know what extensions are
> > supported by a given backend ?
> 
> What extensions are you worried about, specifically?  And what's the use
> case for configuring them by hand?

Like Tristan wrote we currently evaluate some ideas for improving
cooperation of applications and backends, without spoiling the API with
much clutter that's only meaningful to a few backends. ESourceExtension
seemed like a perfect fit for that purpose.

> This page explains which extensions are typically present in a given
> type of key file: https://live.gnome.org/Evolution/ESourceFileFormat

Thanks a lot for this link! We already wondered about the details of the
source file format.

> The various "config" modules in Evolution [1] serve as configuration
> backends for the account editor and the "New Address Book" and "New
> Calendar" dialogs.  Each module knows what extensions are supported by
> its respective Camel/E-D-S backend.

Is it wise to have such tight coupling?

I'd suspect such tight coupling makes things harder for environments
that can make good use of EDS, but where Evolution UI (or in the long
term GOA?) doesn't fit. Like for instance mobile devices. Shouldn't
there be some API that provides introspection of supported backends and
their features?

Ciao,
Mathias