Re: [gnome-db] User space providers

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Sat, 2003-09-20 at 15:14, Danilo Schoeneberg wrote:
> Hi Crew,
> 
> 
> As Rodrigo suggested, it would be a good idea to integrate the gnomedb
> configuration with the gnome-control-center. I've completed the basic
> skeleton and the UI of an appropriate capplet. While doing so the idea
> of user space providers sprang to mind.
> 
hmm, what's wrong with the gnome-database-properties applet in
libgnomedb? It is a control center applet, and shows up in the Desktop
Preferences menu.

> The idea of allowing user space providers is to enable users (other than
> the administrator) to install additional database providers outside
> libgda's provider directory. This would allow user to install for
> instance a tuned/optimized version of an existing provider. I already
> know what would have to be done to libgda to enable that, but I didn't
> want to do such a heavy modification without some sort of consent from
> the gang.
> 
sounds good, and it's not really a huge modification. You just need to
change libgda/gda-config.c to look for an extra directory, in the user's
home, and look for providers there. As you'll see after looking at the
code, the modifications needed are quite small. You just have to add a
list of directories to search for, and repeat the code there is right
now for searching in $prefix/lib/libgda/providers, for each directory.

We could also take advantage of this to have a way for sysadmins to
specify other directories to search for providers. There could be an
entry in the system-wide config file that can be uses to specify those
extra directories.

> Another question concerns the capplet directly. Altho it theoretically
> uses only libgda functions, would it be more appropriate to enclose it
> in libgnomedb or should it go as an optional component into the libgda
> respository. 
> 
as there is one already in libgnomedb, yeah, it should be there :-)

cheers