[Nepomuk] Nepomuk Controller

[Jörg Ehrichs]

Hi Vishesh

2013/5/2 Vishesh Handa <me at vhanda.in>:
>
> The new controller needs to solve these criteria for all kinds of indexing.
> Not just files. So we need the following use cases to be satisfied -
>
> 1. Quick Overview - Quickly see if something is being indexed

see end of mail

> 2. Detailed Information - Which file/email/contact? Progress %?

The progress information need to be added to the services and currently
I have no clear idea what progress will  be shown.

For the file indexer we could show the progress for each batch of files?
or 100% means all indexed files and current progress is the amount
files 100- indexing level 1 ?

the akonadi feeder currently shows just an overall progress and nothing
that can be split between mails and contacts/calendar

> 3. Pause/Resume indexing - (Optional - suspend/resume only some
> types of indexing - but I personally think the user shouldn't have to care
> that much)

ok.

>
> And finally, it should provide information about "File Metadata update"
> operations when the file metadata is being updated after a large file
> move.

isn't this the data shown from the filewatcher?

>
> The new controller solves (2) and (3) to a certain extent, though I feel
> it's too technical. The user shouldn't have to care about each service.
> That's just an implementation detail.
>
> In order to solve (1) the following needs to be implemented -
>
> The old Nepomuk controller used to only become active if there was
> activity for more than 2 seconds. In our new one maybe we should keep
> it to about 10 seconds?
>

This is already implemented but with 3 seconds delay at the moment.
The current plasma updated script simply set the " always visible"
settings for the controller

To get back to the old behaviour change the setings:
* rightclick the arrow in the taskbar and enter setting
* Entries -> set nepomuk controller to automatic

I'll change the update script accordingly than



>
> b. Easily know what's going on - This should ideally be done via a
> system popup when hovering over the widget. Something simple like
> "Files and Emails are currently being indexed"
>

At the moment there is a tooltip when you move your mouse over the tray icon
that shows the message retrieved via dbus for each active service

> -----
>
>
> See the attached image
>
> This clearly shows what is being indexed and even gives a kind of
> progress meter which the user can consult if they are interested.
> Though it just occurred to me that maybe there should be a global
> progress bar as well?

What would be the content of the global progressbar?
I believe this would result in confusing data that goes up/down
everytime. Currently no usefull progress is emitted from the akonadi
feeder, nor from any other nepomuk service.

>
> Please note that the "Indexing Emails/Files/Blah" will only be shown when
> something is being indexed. Otherwise it will be blank.
>

Looks nice, but here we have one problem. If I'm not mistaken
the akonadi feeder does not return what kind of collection it is processing
at the moment, instead it just processes all available collections and tells
us what the name of the collection is.

>
> One case which I haven't mentioned is that of the file watcher, I'm not
> sure how to represent that, but we do need to show a message that
> metadata is being updated to reflect the state of the File System.
>

If we change the nepomuk service part to return this kind of info thats fine
but how long will this message be shown until we say that the filewatcher
is idle again? and do we show a message for each moved file or just "big"
updates?

>
> PS : We could add the web-miner as "Fetching additional data about <fileName>"
> and maybe we could even show some cool icon like a relevant picture. For
> example say the banner of lost when fetching information about a lost episode.

sounds good, just the icon stuff might be problematic, works great if
the banner is
available via nfo:depiction already, but otherwise this means we need
to download
the image and this is done even though most people might never see it.

My main concern with all these changes:
the deadline to get this in is the 22.05 and if I read the plasma
freeze mail correctly
afterwards we won't be able to change anything about this controller
anymore for 4.12

So either we/I speed things up, or we agree on a subset of this solution.
The qml part is changes rather quickly I assume, the main change is in
the dataengine
and the nepomuk service part.