Re: ioctls for gnome-vfs

[Michael Meeks <michael ximian com>]

On Tue, 2002-11-19 at 18:05, Alex Graveley wrote:
> > The reason I dislike automatic handling of live metadata the way alexg 
> > proposes it is because it is so open-ended. Consider these types of live 
> > metadata:
> >
> > Mp3 file:
> > * id3 author data
> > * play time
> > * BPM count
> > * frequency graph
> 
> if these are included in the file's id3 tag section, and is not
> reading/editing content, whats the issue?

	Sigh - you have to get the code from somewhere to do this; it's
un-related to the URI, and as such not really a core part of the
'Virtual Filing System' necessarily. Thus, it seems you propose adding a
huge plugin-monster somewhere inside the VFS. Ultimately - this is
precisely what monikers are designed to do, (and avoid more nasty mess).

	Furthermore, as Jody says - the API for metadata proposed is acutely
inadequate for what is necessary for OLE2 stuff.

	Personally - I think we should do it all with monikers ;-) but I'm
biased; possibly some form of parallel ioctl like interface discovery /
invocation process is worth having due to some people's general
irrational loathing of Bonobo. My feeling though is that something like:

[snip]
interface Printer {
	void pause () raises GeneralError;
	void resume () ...
};

	GNOME_Printer p = bonobo_object_get ("printers:/printer1",
					     "GNOME/Printer", NULL);
	if (p)
		GNOME_Printer_pause (p, ev);
[snip]

	Is nicer than some ioctl mess of type-(and generally otherwise) dubious
GValues ;-)

	Regards,

		Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot