[Kde-pim] Plugin Question re Kontact Headers

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Sunday 06 September 2009, Lindsay Mathieson wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Sep 2009 08:06:37 pm Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > On Sunday 06 September 2009, Lindsay Mathieson wrote:
> > > On Sun, 6 Sep 2009 05:50:11 am Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> > > > Yes, that way is broken. See above. A possible solution for
> > > > this would be to make kontactinterfaces public API. But we do
> > > > not want to do so. Just recently there was a short discussion
> > > > about Kontact plugins and we decided not to support the
> > > > development of arbitrary Kontact plugins by making the plugin
> > > > interfaces public. Unfortunately, I cannot remember in which
> > > > thread this was discussed.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately I didn't have much look searching for the thread -
> > > my I ask why there will be no public interface for Plugins? will
> > > this be a permanent state of affairs?
> >
> > Here are the main reasons:
> > - A public interface must be stable. We do not want to guarantee
> > stable interfaces because we want to be able to change the
> > interfaces whenever we feel it's necessary. We have done so
> > regularly.
> > - We know of exactly one Kontact plugin that was developed outside
> > of kdepim: basKet.
>
> Chicken and Egg there - of course there's very few plugins, no public
> API and you regularly break it.
>
> > - We don't want random Kontact plugins.
>
> Ok - You want control over what plugins can be developed. I
> appreciate the candor.
>
> > > I imagine the move to akonadi and a full component based
> > > Kontact/KMail would be one reason, but I'd hope that once that
> > > has finalised we could revisit it.
> >
> > We (I) see no point in integrating random component plugins into
> > Kontact. Where I see value is in externally developed plugins for
> > the summary page.
>
> I differ - more later.
>
> > > I was hoping to develop a mythtv status monitor plugin for
> > > Kontact, but there no much point if it has to be included in
> > > kdepim - that level of dependencies is never going to fly.
> >
> > Can you elaborate on what this plugin is supposed to do  why you
> > think it is suitable as plugin for Kontact.
> > Shall this plugin be a
> > full-fledged component? Or is it a plugin for the summary page? How
> > is a mythtv status monitor related to Personal Information
> > Management?
>
> Background:MythTV is a advanced DVR + Other stuff :) (Videos, Weather
> etc). It exports a full control api + a simple XML status web api so
> you can see upcoming recordins, disk usage, recording conflicts,
> tuner status, system status, TV Guide etc. Something I check
> everyday.
>
> Since I live inside kontact a lot of the time and its an information
> manager, for me it would be very useful to see this info inside a
> full component + selected stuff in the Summary. Maybe someday I'd
> even extend it to allow limited control of Myth. I could use it to
> generate alerts when recording clashes or failure occur.

Hmm, I don't really see what MythTV has to do with Personal Information 
Management. The only overlap I see is that some people might want to be 
able to add certain TV broadcasts to their calendar. But this would be 
done via an Akonadi calendar resource.

Anyway, whatever you do please follow the example of the other PIM 
applications and make it possible to run your MythTV monitor optionally 
as standalone app.


Regards,
Ingo
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