Question on service activation

[Matthew Johnson]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2007, Celso Pinto wrote:


> When a 3rd party application, let's say OOo, wants to send an email,
> it asks the broker for the default provider of the org.fd.Email by
> invoking the broker.GetDefaultProvider method. This method returns the
> "activatable" service name (which is, _by convention_, the same as the
> bus name: org.gnome.Evolution) and the path for the object once it's
> accessible (e.g. /org/gnome/Evolution, again a convention).
>
> With this information, OOo can ask DBUS to activate the dbus service
> org.gnome.Evolution. If it isn't running it'll be started, otherwise
> DBUS returns a result code saying that this service is already
> running.

No, this is the wrong model IMHO. I think that whoever defines the
'standard email client interface' (eg fd.o) should define a bus name,
object path(s) and interface(s). A client wishing to send an email
should call a standard method/interface on a well known (generic) email
bus name on a defined object. Any client wishing to be a default email
client should activate that name. There should then be a separate
mechanism for defining which app should be activated for that name.

Matt

-- 
Matthew Johnson
http://www.matthew.ath.cx/