application integration standard proposal

[Olivier Sessink]

Ethan Blanton wrote:
> Olivier Sessink spake unto us the following wisdom:
>> An example: "The end user is using a IM client, where the he's notified 
>> in the chat window that a new email arrived from the same person he's 
>> chatting to (even if the IM account is different from the email 
>> account). The user may right click this buddy in the IM client, and in 
>> the context menu it says you have unread mail from this person, and the 
>> context menu will allow you to email this user (open a compose window)"
> 
> This is a really great idea, and it's sort of come up before (with
> Pidgin<->evolution integration, and Christian Hammond's "Galago"
> project).

I've looked at Galago, and it is a good step in the right direction, but 
I think a more generic standard would help the Linux desktop better.

>> The draft standard how to do this is at 
>> http://olivier.sessink.nl/publications/UCII/
> 
> I have only looked at this briefly -- I'll try to read it more
> carefully and provide specific comment later.

it's not a full blown standard yet. Currently it shows the ideas for the 
standard. I tried to keep the complexity for the applications down to a 
minumum while providing maximum integration from the user point of view.

Changes that I've been thinking about, is if the daemon should 'push' 
status changes to applications. If this is desirable, the daemon 
interface should have a method to request pushes, and the application 
should have a method to provide status updates.

regards,
	Olivier