zeitgeist team mailing list archive

[Christoph Buchner <646724@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just to be clear, I don't want to replace ZG, I didn't even intend to
pull tracker into this (it was just meant as a technology reference, I
shouldn't have mentioned it at all maybe). I'm just looking for a
feasible solution to enable users to be able to find all files they
would most probably search for, using unity. Seeing that this feature is
powered by ZG, I see 3 alternatives:

a) manually open all files, or wait until user has interacted with all
files without her being able to use unity search for said interaction in
the meantime (this is the status now, and I think we all agree it's not
very enticing).

b) Add an option to ZG to point to some directory (e.g. stuff in the users' extra data partition), whose contents will then be indexed _once_ by ZG. (Comment #29) This is basically an automated version of a), something like a "fast-forward" button.  
The state of the index should then be not much worse than after normal usage for a long time, assuming the user will stumble over most of the files in said directory during normal usage, over time. Wildcard exceptions could be added to minimize cruft being added to the db (e.g. *~ files)
Is this a workable idea? If not, why? Are there negative performance impacts on ZG and/or unity-place-files I don't see?
Pro: tracker or similar technology does not have to be involved.

c) Write a script which, when pointed to a directory, accesses all the
files sequentially, thus adding them to the ZG index as desired by the
user. (comment #31) Admittedly the most hackish workaround, and just
saves you the tedium of opening and closing files for a day or so, to be
able to find them with unity-place-files.

To me at least, b) sounds reasonable. thoughts? alternatives?

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Zeitgeist
Framework Team, which is subscribed to Zeitgeist Data-Sources.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/646724

Title:
  not all files show up in files-place

Status in Unity:
  Triaged
Status in Unity Files Place:
  Triaged
Status in Zeitgeist Framework:
  Fix Released
Status in Zeitgeist Data-Providers:
  Invalid
Status in “unity-place-files” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “zeitgeist” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  The Unity interface, with its files-place feature for user access to
  files/documents etc. is really great.

  However there is a problem since the search feature relies wholly on
  zeitgeist (AFAIK), in the zeitgeist is not tracking everything.

  E.g. in openoffice, I create a new file (or open an existing one) from
  within openoffice itself. This file does not show up, presumably
  because openoffice does not (yet) push its activity to zeitgeist.

  I guess any number of other programs could suffer the same problem.

  For the average user, this is surely going to be confusing. They will
  create documents via legitimate means ('New ...' buttons in their
  applications), and then expect to be able to search for them in the
  Unity files-place interface.

  To avoid this confusion I would guess there really needs to be a
  filesystem watcher on the home dir (or key folders within it) so that
  zeitgeist is aware of activity caused by non-zeitgeist-aware
  applications.