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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: KoDataTools
From:       Kurt Granroth <granroth () kde ! org>
Date:       2001-10-06 16:17:17
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On Saturday 06 October 2001 02:20 am, David Faure wrote:
> A "data tool" (and this answers Kurt's question about the naming) is
> a component/plugin that _operates_ on data (that the hosting application
> sends it). That's why it's called a tool, and not just "data plugin" (which
> might be confused with something that has data to offer).
>
> The KoDataTool semantics are: the hosting application gives it data,
> and the tool does whatever it wants with that data (including showing
> dialogs to the user, and modifying the string to send a modified version to
> the application). So this is good for things like spell-checking a single
> word (for more you need progressive feedback in the application), for
> showing synonyms of a word, antonyms etc. ;).... or for thing like "rotate
> this image" etc.

This sounds exactly like a "plugin" to me.  All plugins that I'm aware of
only operate on data.. they don't provide any.

For instance, KParts::Plugins like babelfish, validator, imggallery all get
the data from KHTMLPart or KonqDirPart and simply process it in some manner.

Moving away from KDE, we have Netscape plugins.  They, too, simply deal with
the data that Netscape hands them.  They don't generate their own data.

Anyway, I'm not going to belabor this point.  DataTool may not be as
intuitive sounding to me as DataPlugin.. but I'm sure it *would* be less
confusing to those just getting a hang of KParts::Plugins.
-- 
Kurt Granroth            | http://www.granroth.org
KDE Developer/Evangelist | SuSE Labs Open Source Developer
granroth@kde.org         | granroth@suse.com
            KDE -- Conquer Your Desktop

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