vfs Was: RSS/RDF Aggregator

[ibotty]

>> i was very keen on implementing a vfs (virtual filesystem in desktop- ,
> not
> 
> Well, imho here we aren't really talking about VFS ...but simply of a
> method to open the right application according to the URL.

well, i certainly missed that. i thought openURL would be more or less
[NSData openURL]. this was/is wrong it seems.


> That's true ... but it's important to generally stick with OpenStep/NeXT
> point of view -- that's what we want, no ? not a KDE clone...

i also do not propose a kde clone (although its vfs is done in a nice way)

> In the same time, some ideas are perhaps wrongly trashed, such as VFS.

> It's always a delicate balance to choose between conservative point of
> view and innovative pov. Sometimes it's good to change the old way :-)
> but many others times sticking with OpenStep way / philosophy is better.
> Having some steppers around is then good.

you are right. to pick a favourite topic, i do not like horizontal menus,
but for *additions*, that even do not alter *any* previous api interface,
just the implementation, those (mostly) non-developers should not flame
every single person.

> What I heard against VFS was mostly about the visual representation for
> the file manager : ie, that it could leads to replace GWorkspace.app UI
> with a browser-metaphor UI. The other thing was that theorically VFS
> shouldn't be the GNUstep job, but the kernel job. Problem is that GNUstep
> is theorically multiplatform ...

yes, the ultimate goal is to have the kernel manage all vfs's. but this is
not going to happen very soon. i have a patch against dragonflybsd, that
provides imap support at the kernel level. (yes, imap is one of my toys)
somewhen most kernels will transfer filesystems to userspace (dragonfly
sooner, others later), then, a (broad) vfs on kernel-level is possible.
maybe not for gnustep, as its focus is multi-platform.

> My opinion here is that I agree with the idea that GWorkspace shouldn't
> be the placeholder for all URL (as konqueror is). But in the same time,
> it would be great to have a unified method to /open/ URLs with the right
> application ! 

this is mimetype-handling, isn't it. this is unrelated to vfs.
yes, i understand, that this was, what the thread was about, but
nevertheless.

> So we could let the user choose its prefered app, etc.
> It's not much about a VFS here. A VFS should have more to do with NSFile;
> and perhaps it could also be interesting to have a common method to let
> applications add "VFS" capacities to NSFile (that is, a WebDav app could
> add HTTP PUT to NSFile for example). It could be done in bundles instead
> of apps too...

my interface worked with (simple) bundles.
this can surely be extended to services, if need be, but services are,
afaik, a user-interface not neccessarily a programming interface.
(me, as user, would be annoyed by 20+ services, that provide only ioslaves)

~ibotty