dbus library functions

dbus library functions

[Mark A. Hershberger]

I'm interested in making a library of common dbus services available in
Emacs.

Three logical services would be Notify, On Screen Display, and Avahi.
Perhaps some of the power management information available via DBus
would be useful to battery.el, as well.

So, two questions:

1. Would building Emacs Lisp functions to encapsulate some of the DBus
   information be useful to include in the core?

2. Would it be better to create separate libraries (e.g. notify.el,
   osd.el, avahi.el) or a single one (e.g. freedesktop-dbus.el) for
   these functions?

Thanks,

Mark.

Re: dbus library functions

[Stefan Monnier]

> 1. Would building Emacs Lisp functions to encapsulate some of the DBus
>    information be useful to include in the core?

Can't rule it out, but can't guarantee it either.

> 2. Would it be better to create separate libraries (e.g. notify.el,
>    osd.el, avahi.el) or a single one (e.g. freedesktop-dbus.el) for
>    these functions?

Wouldn't know before seeing the code.


        Stefan

Re: dbus library functions

[Michael Albinus]

mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:

> I'm interested in making a library of common dbus services available in
> Emacs.
>
> Three logical services would be Notify, On Screen Display, and Avahi.
> Perhaps some of the power management information available via DBus
> would be useful to battery.el, as well.
>
> So, two questions:
>
> 1. Would building Emacs Lisp functions to encapsulate some of the DBus
>    information be useful to include in the core?

There are already some of them: xesam.el, zeroconf.el.

> 2. Would it be better to create separate libraries (e.g. notify.el,
>    osd.el, avahi.el) or a single one (e.g. freedesktop-dbus.el) for
>    these functions?

I believe, separate libraries are the better approach. And zeroconf.el
*IS* your planned avahi.el.

I was thinking about writing something like notify.el, but other
projects had priority. osd.el might be useful, too.

Anyway, we have feature freeze, so I assume you must postpone your
proposals until after-the-release. I have also some libraries in the
queue, which wait for that (xesam-debbugs.el - an interface to the Emacs
bug tracking system; collabora.el - support for collaborative editing;
tramp-gvs.el - using Tramp via the gvfs daemon).

Btw, it would be great, if you could comment the existing D-Bus based
packages, especially zeroconf.el. I didn't receive so much feedback
until now.

> Thanks,
>
> Mark.

Best regards, Michael.

Re: dbus library functions

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> writes:

> There are already some of them: xesam.el, zeroconf.el.

Thanks.  I hadn't grepped the source yet.  This is great!

> I was thinking about writing something like notify.el, but other
> projects had priority. osd.el might be useful, too.

I'll post them to the list.

> collabora.el - support for collaborative editing;

Nice!  I was thinking of something like this.  Is this your own protocol
or is it compatible with other editors?

> Btw, it would be great, if you could comment the existing D-Bus based
> packages, especially zeroconf.el. I didn't receive so much feedback
> until now.

I'll take a look.  Thanks for the pointers.

Mark.

Re: dbus library functions

[Michael Albinus]

mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:

>> collabora.el - support for collaborative editing;
>
> Nice!  I was thinking of something like this.  Is this your own protocol
> or is it compatible with other editors?

The idea is from Alban Crequy. He wrote plugins for gedit and gvim,
I've added the GNU Emacs package. But we are at the very beginning,
and the telepathy tubes implementation will be hard.

See <http://alban.apinc.org/blog/collaborative-editing/> for a screencast.

> Mark.

Best regards, Michael.