Re: Application roles - first steps

[Stefan Urbanek]

On 2004-02-22 17:02:55 +0100 Enrico Sersale <enrico@imago.ro> wrote:
<snip>
> Well, I'm thinking at this and the first problem encountered is that I need 
> this feature in many places and, splitting GWorkspace in some apps, as I'm 
> doing, in many applications.
>
> So, the concept is that I need an external object that, given a path and a 
> key representing the desidered information, returns the right representation.
>
> To test this, I've written a little daemon with a method named 
> "-nameForPath:".
> For the moment, -nameForPath: does nothing; it waste intentionally some time 
> to simulate
> its work and then returns the lastPathComponent of the path.

Just courious: why do you use a daemon for that, instead of a framework class?

Is it possible to change -NSFileManager displayNameAtPath: to use kind of 
delegates or name-providers?

> It seems that this doesn't slows down the browser very much; I've tested with 
> two "big" directories, /dev and /usr/lib, and I get a factor of 2.1 for /dev 
> and 1.4 for /usr/lib. But, in the normal use, I don't notice any sensible 
> change.

What about -namesForPaths: (inspired by -valuesForKeys:(NSArray *) from 
key-value coding)? With this, you can eliminate lots of inter-process 
communication.

> My only concern, for such a solution, was the speed. After the test, it 
> becomes a very interesting thing, also opening the way to some possible 
> extensions to this concept.
> Moreover -nameForPath:, this daemon could have acces to any kind of metadata 
> associated with the path. Think at the "Comments:" field in the Info window 
> of the Mac Finder, for example.

- metaDataForPath:? :-) or ... metaDataForPaths:? Hmmm ... if there was such 
method and metadata providers, we can have also 'tags' (or how they are called 
- those stickers you put on files in Nautilus).

> So, now I need some suggestion for the name of the daemon and for the keys to 
> use to get the representations. (Even if I can write a version returning just 
> the lastPathComponent, for the moment).

What about keys: WSDisplayName, WSRole, WSTags, WSComments...? I see no reason 
for daemon for this functionality, Workplace framework is a good place. And you 
can add appropriate methods to gwremote if you want this for a remote machine.

Stefan
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