Re: Online Desktop and GNOME 2.22

[Colin Walters <walters redhat com>]

John Stowers wrote:
> But at the moment this particular 'PDA' requires a different way for
> it to be connected. As I explained earlier, the other 'PDA's we
> support are either connected(), disconnected(), or we ask for the user
> to connect them (log in) while we wait. I am interested in providing a
> consistant way for users to connect their 'PDA's (log in) and I do
> this by either using programmatic login (gdata for example), or asking
> them to log in using our simple browser login. online.gnome.org doesnt
> seem to support either of these scenarios, requiring  a different
> connection procedure to everyone else.
>
> I am really interested in thinking about how to integrate sync into
> the desktop.
>   
So I'm planning to spend some time next week taking a look at how we can 
clean up some of the web service authentication in the desktop.  Here's 
a wiki page with some initial thoughts: 
http://live.gnome.org/OnlineDesktop/WebAccountSystem

Obviously there's a lot more to add, but I'm hoping to create a system 
that other GNOME projects such as Conduit and Gimmie could make use of.

Now, as for login to online.gnome.org itself;
> c)
> Continuing on from the above point, the current method of monitoring
> and parsing the cookie file to log in, while cute, is not something I
> totally grok. While I see the point of it all (login once, and then
> access the services from any app) It never gets close to solving the
> real problem, sharing authenticating information from the browser with
> the rest of the system. web-login-driver is neither here nor there as
> a solution, it adds another running daemon for very little benefit, as
>   
web-login-driver could also be a client library I guess, but it does 
certainly provide the benefit of logging into a web service through the 
web, and having the desktop be able to pick it up.
> the final step in the process (rewriting the cookie file so the
> browser can pickup external logins) is not implemented.
We can't really safely sync logins back to the browser right now.  The 
point of web-login-driver is the other way around (web->desktop) as I 
mentioned above.

As Owen said, basically the way we'd thought login to online.gnome.org 
would work is that some part of your desktop (say the personalized 
application launcher) tells you you need to log in, and you click there 
to do so.
I'm not sure at the moment what conduit would be syncing to/from 
online.gnome.org.