[Telepathy] Standardising Mission Control

[Alberto Mardegan]

ext Alp Toker wrote:
> Some possible desirables:
> 
>     * Client/service separation: Allow for lightweight client
>       implementations by doing as much work as possible in the service.
>       This would mean having D-Bus API not only for for accessing
>       accounts but also for manipulating account details.

I take for granted that we all agree on gconf being the place where to 
store account data (if not, step forward!). Under this condition, I 
don't see any benefit in having a DBus API for managing accounts; 
speaking of the package I know (mission-control), most of the API 
required to manage account are not much more than simple setters and 
getters of gconf data; the only exceptions might be the account creation 
/deletion functions, which are doing some work more.
I'm afraid that a DBus API would just be one level of indirection more, 
and have the only effects of slowing down things.

BTW, I'm not strictly against the idea of introducing it -- but I would 
see as an addition, not as a replacement of what is already in 
libmissioncontrol-config.

>     * Standardise the account store format to ease migration between
>       desktop environments and possibly even mobile devices.

Agreed.

>     * Avoid monolithic interfaces in favour of smaller ones that deal
>       with individual roles eg. account management,  unified contacts,
>       unified presence. Implementations with specific needs can then
>       concentrate on the features they need to support.

I guess that here with "interfaces" you are still referring to DBus 
interfaces. What we have now in mission-control is only "unified 
presence"; contacts and account management are left out. About the 
latter, as I just wrote I don't have a strong opinion in favor of it, 
while about contacts I am too biased by Nokia's eds-sync to come out 
with any different idea. :-)

Ciao,
   Alberto

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