Bookmarks for Accretion

[Frank Reininghaus]

Hi,

2014-02-10 21:01 GMT+01:00 Mark Gaiser:
> Hi,
>
> I think this is the very first time that i (ab)use this list for a
> file manager other then Dolphin. Luckily this list is called kfm-devel
> and not dolphin-devel so i think i can get away with it ^_-
>
> Right, bookmarks!
>
> Accretion currently looks like this [1]. The places and devices are
> currently very hard coded [2]. Doing this made me look into the
> bookmarks used in Dolphin and how i can integrate them in Accretion.
> I've spotted a few possible issues that would prevent me from using
> the current bookmarks.xml or even the XBEL specification.
>
> 1. The current bookmarks configuration files don't seem to be owned by
> dolphin since it's placed in:
> "<home>./.kde4/share/apps/kfileplaces/bookmarks.xml" and
> "<home>./.local/share/user-places.xbel". But they do seem to be
> created and managed by dolphin (thus effectively owned by it).

The bookmarks in that file are neither owned nor managed exclusively
by Dolphin. Every application that has a KFilePlacesView uses the same
file and can be used to manage it. Before Peter wrote Dolphin's custom
Places view for KDE SC 4.9, I think that using
KFilePlacesView+KFilePlacesModel might have been the only way to
access that file.

Saying that the file is created by Dolphin is also wrong. Any KDE
application will create it for you if you open the "File Open/Save"
dialog.

> 2. The XBEL specification seems to be a full fledged bookmark managing
> system for browsers. Not a system to make menus (which this is, we
> just call it bookmarks). That also made me wonder if i should use the
> XBEL specification at all (and KBookmarks to handle it) or should i
> make a very simple new "menu format" in json specifically aimed at my
> needs?

That obviously depends on what your needs are. If you want that people
use your application and perceive it as a KDE application, then I
think they might expect that it also uses the "Places" that they have
configured, e.g., in the file dialog. In that case, you could either
access the file directly, or use a KFilePlacesView, or (maybe the best
solution) add a new, possibly QML-based, "Places" view to a suitable
framework that includes the Baloo places, and that other applications
might be able to use in the future.

> What would be your preference?
> My initial preference was going to 1 and show the bookmarks in
> Accretion that are visible in Dolphin. That would be the least
> intrusive way from a user point of view, but would also make me
> dependent on Frank not changing the format :)

We cannot change the format without breaking other applications, and I
thought that I had already made that clear to you in

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309620

Regards,
Frank