File dialog bookmarks

[Claes at work]

I can't see in the spec how the bookmark file will be updated. It says:
"For different desktops and applications to have access to the same
information, a protocol for storing the bookmarks list has to be
determined." Is this protocol a protocol that is not yet specified, or
is the file itself the protocol? I wonder if it will work well with a
single file that can be written by many applications. There is a risk
that concurrent write access will make the last updating application
write over the application that updated it just before.

It then says:
"Each bookmark must have the bookmark element as root node. The target
URI of the bookmark must be stored in the href attribute of the
bookmark  element." I don't know how to interpret this. Does it mean
that bookmark files are dropped into a directory and then merged into
a bigger xml document, that has xbel as the root element? In the
context of the only example in the spec, the bookmark element is not a
root node. I imagine it would work if smaller files with the bookmark
element as root element were dropped into a directory, and then merged
into the proposed bigger document by a dedicated process. Is that what
is proposed?

It might be that I am just missing something obvious, but I think the
spec can be more clear about how bookmarks are stored.

It says: "Desktop bookmarks will be located inside the
desktop-bookmarks.xbel file." but I can't find a definition of what
desktop bookmarks are. What makes a desktop bookmark special from
other kinds of bookmarks? Can it be a bookmark to any resource, or
only files etc. Is it meant for file managers, or web browsers etc. A
definition would be good there.

As an extension, I imagine having a special file with bookmarks to
directories only would make sense from a file dialog perspective. It
could include directories for opening or storing different kinds of
files.

Later, as an extension, directories could be tagged for different
uses. Directories for downloaded files, directores with textures (for
desktop backgrounds), directories with photos (for desktop
backgrounds, screensavers etc), directories with sound files (for
notifications) and so on..

Claes


On 6/15/05, Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, 2005-06-14 at 22:49 +0200, Claes at work wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > I think It would be good if file dialogs in different applications
> > could share their bookmarks.
> 
> It would be good for sure. :-)
> 
> > What do you think?
> 
> There already is a draft for this effort:
> 
>         http://devel.emmanuelebassi.net/papers/bookmark-spec.html
> 
> I'm currently reviewing it for some rough edges, and any help is much
> appreciated (I'm lacking proper at least for this month).
> 
> You should also read these threads:
> 
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg-list/2005-May/006862.html
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xdg-list/2005-May/006903.html
> 
> On the Gnome side, I'm currently working on the integration of the
> Recently Used Resources inside Gtk; bookmarks to recently used resources
> would use this spec for storing URIs and their metadata:
> 
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2005-June/msg00002.html
> 
> I've already written a parser using GLib and libxml2, and you can find
> it here:
> 
> http://devel.emmanuelebassi.net/software/desktopbookmarks/
> 
> Regards,
>  Emmanuele.
> 
> --
> Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi at gmail.com>
> Web site: http://log.emmanuelebassi.net
> 
>