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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    RFC Extending KURL ( KExtendedURL ??? )
From:       Dawit Alemayehu <adawit () earthlink ! net>
Date:       1999-07-19 2:48:49
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Hello,

I am thinking about extending the functionality of KURL to support incomplete (
better known as short or smart ) URLs as well as weird, but valid ( according
to RFC 1738 ) formats such //www.kde.org.  I was wondering whether it would be
best to modify KURL itself,  add a child class such as KEnhancedURL or
KExtendedURL or simply let the apps deal with it as is the current case.  I
personally prefer doing the second as the work involved is trivial, simply
override ::parse() in KURL and perhaps add a couple of variables and methods in
a subclass.

My main intention here is to avoid code duplication.  This is currently the
case in the 1_1_BRANCH where both minicli.C and kfmgui.cpp contain a variation
on the same code.  kdelibs/khtml will also need this in order to combat the
the weird, but valid formats being used in HREF tags ( there are/were a couple
of bugs for kfm regarding this situation).  Also other apps such as
khelpcenter, kmail, empath and others that can possibly have embedded URL(s)
also come to mind.  

The other class with the same potential is KURLcompeletion.  Under KDE 1.1.x,
this class again is used in both kfm and minicli and possibly others I do not
know about.  In KDE 2.0, besides kongy and minicli,  it can possibly be used
by khelpcenter, kmail's mail composer, empath's mail composer etc.  lt can
also be easily enhanced to support automatic completion to augment the
currently supported manual ( or TAB_KEY ) completion.  This gives all
developers the ability to choose which type, if any, to use or let the user(s)
decide through customization. 

Anyway,  I am aware of the fact that adding classes to the KDE library is not
a trivial matter as it can unnecessarily bloat it.  But since these two
classes are and probably will be highly re-used, they IMHO belong in the
library.  What do you all think ???

Comments, questions, flames, fires all are welcome ...

Regards,
Dawit  A.

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