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List:       kde
Subject:    User Definable Protocols?
From:       "Evan E." <evan () onepaper ! com>
Date:       2000-06-04 20:59:33
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   ( This deals with KDE2, and is strictly an idea that I don't have the
time to implement myself.  It is only an idea.  There is no reason to demand
that I do it just because I thunked it.  It may even be done already. )

   I was just reading Slashdot, and came across the following post
(excerpted):

Well, yeah, but underneath KDE is still the "what the f-ck is that?"
filesystem we endearingly call ext2. Try explaining to a user some time why
saving a file to /tmp is a Bad Idea. Or where their home directory is ("Why
can't I save it to C:\.. er.. / ? It worked fine under windows!"). An
interface is not the mere sum of its components...

   It occured to me that kio has plenty of protocols that it deals with: for
instance, http, file, ftp, smb.  To the user these all take the form of
file://whatever.

   Can users come back and plug in additional functionality?  My first
thought ran to defining "c" as being your home directory, so people
migrating from windows could save to their c://my documents/ location (with
a bit of tweaking, possibly even c:\my documents\).  Having had to deal with
belligerent office workers (sales and attorneys are the worst), the
flexability to appease this issue would gratify people who don't understand
folders in windows, and can't figure out the network drive (always asking
their secretary to load a shared file).  Real world issues.

   Then I started thinking about what *I* would like.  I would love home:
and desktop: (or dt:) defined for my own use to jump to in the file system.
I would love tim: and ritz: to jump to ftp sessions on my servers.  These
are personal tweaks that I would love to edit in a configuration file.
Maybe a pub: that jumps to a shared ftp or nfs directory.

   Then the really good ideas started coming:  How about a loadable module
so that when you plug in your digital camera, you can go to casio:// (or
camera://) and browse the images there?  scanner:// provides a pseudo image
file that when you load it, scans the current document loaded in the
scanner.  cam:// has an image file and video file... open either for your
attached web cam to feed data any application.  Heck... the speakerphone
modem cards could use phone://561-555-3782 to connect to someone, your
tvtuner could use tv://5 or tv://wxel or tv://showtime to view your images
(this is defined in rfc 2838 in a slightly different format.  Modification
for local channels on a tv card might be necessary.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2838.txt ).

   Since Konqueror already supports viewing file types, this would be the
flip side to provide easy access to all devices.  A network protocol to this
would also be easy, since you are providing a pseudo file system anyway.  If
you don't have a TV card in that particular computer, but you do have a nice
100 switched network, just hit tv://myothersystem/showtime/video.mpeg (or
tv://myothersystem/showtime/framegrab.jpeg).  You'll get a mpeg stream that
encodes on one end, and transparantly passes across the network into your
system.  For network scanners and such this would be a great way of working.
If you want to password protect the device, you can: stage a popup a la http
authorization or bookmark the tv://user@myothersystem/showtime format. (I
forget the format for the password in the URL).

   I can even see an early gleam of an idea for printer:// and other output
devices... drag and drop files in formats that can be rendered (via
Konqueror plug-ins?) on that device.  Or save files to "printer:".  Again,
printer://frontoffice/ would be your network printer (or
printer:frontoffice).

   kio is a powerful feature in its current form.  This is one of the things
that makes me use KDE.  My generous thanks and heartfelt gratitude goes to
the people who have coded it this far... here's some daydreaming and food
for thought for where it might go next... if you haven't already gotten
there. :)

Summary/goals: The concept is abstraction via loadable modules (or config
files) to devices or locations via a URL.  Network transparancy has a
convenient and easily understood metaphor, and the whole is compatable with
current conventions.  Read only, write only and R/W devices with any set of
limitations can be addressed by *any* application by translation to a common
file format that makes sense to that device.

--
Evan

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