Re: [Tracker] Tracker as digital asset manager

[Martyn Russell <martyn lanedo com>]

On 21/06/11 13:30, Age Bosma wrote:
> Thank you for the replies.

No problem at all.

> On 20-06-11 09:47, Ivan Frade wrote:
> > > What it lacks, or at least what I was not able to find, is a bit more
> > > structure and some additional features:
> > > - Limit its indexing to a specific set of folders and/or documents
> >
> >   There is "tracker-preferences" to adjust what directories is tracker
> > indexing and monitoring (following changes on them)
>
> Good to know but on second thought I'm not sure if an application using
> Tracker should make use of this.
>
> There are different cases:
> 1) A user already has Tracker up and running before starting to use DocWell
> 2) A user wants to starting using DocWell and Tracker is installed as a
> dependency
>
> In the first case you would not want to limit Tracker's indexing file
> scope. The user might be relying on Tracker to index everything.
> In the second case indexing just the document folder will suffice at
> first. You would, however, run into trouble when other applications
> start to use Tracker's db as well and assume more to be indexed.

The XDG location for Documents is already indexed as standard. Yes, 
indexing more content can impact performance, but that's really what 
Tracker Preferences is for. To control that.

> Would you have it index all files while the majority is overkill at
> first? Or would you limit the indexing scope and run the risk of the
> user getting unexpected results when starting to use other applications
> relying on Tracker?

I am not sure I understand which direction you're coming from here. 
Tracker is usually installed to index all user data. If you have 
specific locations, they need to be added to the config of course, but 
you may also ask Tracker to index files directly using D-Bus.

If you're talking about a close system or embedded device, then you get 
to control all of this. If you're talking about installing a package on 
a desktop system which requires Tracker, then it makes sense to work 
with us to make sure Tracker facilitates your needs (e.g. including 
directories which are not normally index). We have to consider the wider 
case as a rule.

> It mostly depends on the amount of resources Tracker uses. Is the
> difference between indexing a small set of folders or a whole system
> negligible?

It depends on a number of factors. Leaving out hardware (which can be a 
huge difference), it depends on the type of content, if you have FTS 
support compiled, the configuration (i.e. do you log everything?, do you 
have a smaller limit on the FTS data from each file? etc).

For example, indexing the kernel source can take some time because there 
is a lot of source code (clear text) that can be indexed into the FTS 
DB. If you index music, this is quite different and so can be quite faster.

Some extractors are quite fast and some are less so (especially if using 
general extractors like GStreamer for file types which are less common).

The best thing to do is to try it and see. You can (if you prefer) 
configure Tracker to not automate indexing at all and have it start as 
and when you prefer (i.e. you instantiate it) and even only do files 
*you* want it to. This does affect other apps which may be using it 
though and on a per user basis.

I hope I answered your questions,

--
Regards,
Martyn

Founder and CEO of Lanedo GmbH.