Re: NautilusMetadata

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Sun, 2005-04-10 at 14:18 +0200, Diego Gonzalez wrote:
> Is there any reason to keep all the nautilus metadata related
> functionality using Bonobo. 
> Can i remove the bonobo use from those objets and turn them normal
> GObjects?
> 
> I have been looking at it and this is what i will try:
>    1) Remove all the bonobo usage from nautilus-metafile.c and
> nautilus-metafile-factory.c
>    2) Remove all the monitor classes related to metadata and convert
> the NautilusMetafile to emit signals instead
>    3) Remove nautilus-directory-metafile and adapt all the classes to
> call directly the nautilus_metafile methods.
> 
> I think i can have this working in a couple of weeks if there is
> interest in it.

It was historically done because nautilus was a multi-process system,
with components in various processes. If any process wanted to update
some metadata it told the main process to update it which in turn
updated all other processes.

We don't really use out-of-process components anymore though, so maybe
we can get rid of this. 

I have one main concern though. Long-term we really want a metadata
system for files that is public, and that other apps can use. This means
that such a system must use some form of IPC to allow updates to get
propagated from a master metadata handler (while at the same time you
need high performance access to metadata, at least in nautilus).

Its clear that the current internal Bonobo/Corba API is not the one that
would be used for a new public metadata system. The question is, is it
worth changing the current system (maybe causing some destabilization)
to an in-process system, knowing that long term we might replace it.

I think its worth it. It would be nice to clean up the current code,
removing all the hard-to-read corba cruft in it, while keeping the main
structure. This will make the code a lot easier to read and understand.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a sword-wielding Republican paramedic living undercover at Ringling Bros. 
Circus. She's a pregnant motormouth nun who inherited a spooky stately manor 
from her late maiden aunt. They fight crime!