[Panel-devel] The ALI: do we really need or want it?

[Andrey Cherepanov]

26 Jan 2006 17:12, Riccardo Iaconelli wrote:
> > I was simply trying to say that one is still
> > needed/wanted.
>
> But we also cannot store data like the iPod. We must provide a hierarchical
> structure of directory for comfortable browsing with Konqueror, Nautilus
> under GNOME, or simply the command line.
> And of course we mustn't suppress the application-centric menu.
> That's my opinion.
Content is not couple of files and folders. Unfortunately there are a lot of 
useful information (contents) in specific applications: mbox, contacts, IM 
logs, etc.

Best content mapping to files is realized in BeOS. But it requires specific 
filesystem. But even we make each conents part mapped to files (maildirs, 
separate vcards) some features will be lost because filesystem operate only 
small set of file attributes: filename, date (access and modifications) and 
ACL. How do we support extended attributes or additionally fields? Custom 
object order is also stronly needed.

In both cases (store in application format and store as separate files) we 
need easy frontend browser (menu, desktop) with backend that accesses to any 
supported content (via application API and/or extracted meta info from 
separate files).

I hope you understand my bad English ;)

-- 
Andrey Cherepanov
sibskull at mail.ru