[Wasabi] FOSDEM conclusions - finalizing the search spec

[Jos van den Oever]

2007/2/28, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen <mikkel.kamstrup at gmail.com>:
> 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/WasabiUserSearchLanguage)
> 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.
>
I was at the discussions and agree with the above.

Cheers,
Jos