[Authentication] Solution to prompting and async operations
Stef Walter
stef-list at memberwebs.com
Sat Oct 31 18:31:05 PDT 2009
I've finally come up with a solution the whole set of problems to do
with prompting and long running or asynchronous operations. I believe
this covers every requirement. This wasn't an easy task.
* Operations that may require prompting can optionally return
the object path to a 'prompt object'.
* The Prompt() method of the prompt object will then be called
by the client application.
* Prompts objects can be dismissed with the Dismiss() method
of the prompt objects.
* Prompt objects have a 'Completed' signal which is fired when
the prompt and operation completes. A result can be returned.
This solves all sorts of problems:
* Operations succeed or fail immediately but may defer their
action pending user input.
* No deferred failure of operations.
* No strange race conditions between the starting and completion
of an operation. Completion notification is simple.
* Cancellation of prompting possible.
* No long running DBus methods, with associated DBus timeout
malarkey. I'm still not impressed with the design of DBus
in this area.
* Extensible to future operations.
* Prompt timeouts can be implemented on the client side if
so desired.
* Prompts currently being displayed on behalf of a client
application can be closed by an application (if the user
closes a window, for example).
* Prompts for an application are tied to the lifetime of that
applications connection to the DBus bus.
* Fast path when no prompts are neccessary.
* Easy to batch prompting for unlocking.
Methods that optionally return prompt objects are listed here. Obviously
some service implementations would never prompt in certain situations.
But this API is meant to be able to handle varying service implementations.
Service.CreateCollection
Collection.Delete
Collection.CreateItem
Item.Delete
Service.Unlock
Service.Lock
Obviously multiple prompts could be shown for one prompt object. One
example would be the user could be prompted repeatedly until they type
the right password, or cancel. This would all be covered by one prompt
object.
I've pushed these changes, and am moving forward with implementation.
Comments are still welcome, but we need to actually get this stuff done,
so I hope that's okay.
Cheers,
Stef
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