[Xesam] Wrapping up for Xesam Search Spec RC3

[Michael Albinus]

"Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen" <mikkel.kamstrup at gmail.com> writes:

Hi,

> Unless people cry fowl the changes described on
> http://xesam.org/main/XesamUpdates will be final.

I don't want to be the grinch, but I still have a comment on the point
"Details of xesam:url". You propose to introduce a new field
xesam:urlVendor. The contents of this field is linked to applications,
via a .desktop file.

I believe, this is too restrictive, because it would prevent Xesam to
run in environments, where applications are not identified via
.desktop files. Imagine other operating systems ...

And there is also the problem, that there might be different
applications, which could be able to handle the URL in question, for
example an KDE application, and a Gnome application. Which application
shall be chosen by the search engine then?

I believe, the hint, given in xesam:urlVendor, shall be more
neutral. It shall be more a hint, in which context the search engine
has retrieved the URL, and not which client is recommended for best
view.

In my current implementation of a Debian BTS search engine, I use such
an approach. xesam.url returns always a valid (http) URL, which can be
browsed. In xesam:mimeType I return the value "application/x-debbugs",
which says, that the URL is a reference to a bug report.

In my Xesam client, there is a plugin mechanism for arbitrary
applications. If an application registers there for all hits, which
have a given value in xesam:mimeType, that application gains control
whenever such a hit shall be visualized. If there is no registered
application, the default viewer (browser for the URL) is applied.

By this approach, the search engine does not need to know, which
client will do the visualization. Of course, I don't insist to use
xesam:mimeType for this information return; it could be
xesam:urlVendor as well.

> Cheers,
> Mikkel

Best regards, Michael.