[Wasabi] FOSDEM conclusions - finalizing the search spec

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen]

Calling all desktop search gurus of the known web,


We are nearing deadline for the search spec (see
http://wiki.freedesktop.org/wiki/WasabiRoadMap), and I have collected a few
highlights of my discussions at FOSDEM.

 - Generally there where interest in better introspection capabilities to
have dynamic UIs that adapt to the features of the search engine.

 - The ShowSearchTool method in the UI interface was greatly criticized.
Should we - or should we not, have it? As a deskbar dev I would like it,
since not everybody likes live results, but if deskbar would be the only
consumer then I think I could accept life without it :-)

 - We need some command line tools to test and help developing the backends.
I (Mikkel Kamstrup) volunteered to do some in python/glib.

 - There was desire to add a way to introspect all indexed field names (not
all indexers might support the entire metadata spec when it is ready)

 - In the end user search spec
(http://wiki.freedesktop.org/wiki/Wasabi<http://wiki.freedesktop.org/wiki/WasabiRoadMap>UserSearchLanguage)
it should be clarified that you can use words or phrases (with modifiers) as
values in Selectors. As the spec stands now it is actually there if you read
carefully, but it can be visualized via the structure drawing as well (see
the wiki page for new+old version).

 - How should we cater for remote search services or searches on remote
machines (it is not necessarily the same)?


Proposed "diff" to the current API:
----------------------------------------------

 - Add a session parameter to the GetQueryExtensions method, so that the
signature becomes GetQueryExtensions (in s session, out as extensions) since
there might be some future query extensions where their availability
actually depends on the session state.

 - Add a session property that holds the supported Wasabi spec version of
the backend

 - Rename the session properties sort.property.{primary,secondary} to
sort.{primary,secondary}.

 - Method to inspect the state of the indexer, something like GetState(out
as state_info), where state_info is an array of two strings - a key-value
pair. Keys could be IDLE, UPDATING, and FULL_INDEX. The IDLE value should be
ignored. The value of UPDATING is either the empty string or a string
formatted integer denoting how many % the update is done (at 100% you should
change state to IDLE). The value of FULL_INDEX is the same as UPDATING.
IDLE, and UPDATING, should be self explanatory, FULL_INDEX is used when the
indexer is generating a new index from scratch.

 - Add a StateChanged signal with signature StateChanged (in as state_info)
- see item just above for description of argument.

 - Add a GetFieldNames(in s session, out as field_names) method to inspect
the names of all indexed fields. This is useful for runtime cluster
extraction and advanced UIs.


Undecided
--------------

 - Can we control remote searches and other search scoping entirely via
session properties? I think we can... I think the Beagle devs are the only
ones with real experience here though. If we can we can delay the exact
specification of those properties a bit.

 - Add a method to introspect all supported session properties? In the light
of the item just above this might make sense.


Cheers,
Mikkel
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