Current problem with Nepomuk / Contour, possible solution: "Fetch"

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

> -----Original Message-----
> i like the idea, particularly as it would also give us a place to
address
> another set of issues: bandwidth control. this is pretty important on a
> mobile
> device, so an integrated downloader would be great.

I like the general idea a lot, too! What I don't think is that we should
have
a download manager as a separate application. That seems kind of "old
world"
to me. Our vision for Plasma Active should be to make the origin and
location
of resources as transparent to the user as possible.
I've just had a very interesting discussion with a visitor of the World
Usability
Day (I'll post more outcomes of the WUD on the list later) whom I
presented
Plasma Active.
One of the things that came to her mind immediately when I talked about
how
we want to keep the technicalities of the file system away from the user
was
"Users should not have to care about where a resource is located, then.
Whether
it's on your device, your company server or in the Cloud, when it's
connected
to your current activity, you can use it.". And managing downloads is such
a
technical task that I'd like to hide it from users as much as possible.
I'd vote for just having a "component" (still haven't come up with a
proper name
for it, but it's the same concept as with the resource management thingy)
which
handels file downloads under the hood if necessary. When I select a
resource
from the web and click "connect", it should download for offline use in
the back-
ground and also update it automatically if there's a new version of it, so
I as a
user don't have to care where it is. I have connected it to an activity
and when
I want to access it, I "just can" (tm).
I don't really see the usecase for a download manager application.
Downloading
stuff is never a primary task. It's just enabling you to do another task
involving a
file from the web.

Cheers,
Thomas