Re: RSS/RDF Aggregator

[Marcus Müller]

On Mittwoch, Oktober 22, 2003, at 11:33  Uhr, Richard Frith-Macdonald  
wrote:

> Actually, I don't know how MacOS-X does it ... another interpretation
> might be that the data from the referenced location should be retrieved
> and stored in a temporary file, than an application launched to open
> that file.  I don't *think* that's the purpose of the method ... does  
> anyone
> know?

Mac OS X uses the Internet Config  
(http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/ 
Internet_Config/) for that. Internet Config is something which stems  
from pre Mac OS X days. Basically it's a sort of controller that  
manages a current set of settings related to the "Internet", like your  
currently preferred {news reader | mail app | web browser} and so on.  
Also, it maintains a set of options related to these services, like  
your email address, incoming mail server, user account id, password  
(stored in keychain), homepage, file download area etc. This is quite  
some infrastructure. It's not really necessary to have all that, but it  
works like a charm. If you switch your preferred Browser, all (native,  
ported) Browsers using this infrastructure will be provided with the  
same information - theoretically you don't have to adjust your  
preferences anymore. In practice, all apps have their own set of  
specialties so it doesn't really work without touching the preferences.

When implementing such a thing for GNUstep, the most important aspect  
IMHO, however, is that there's a central registry of all applications  
implementing a specific set of URL schemes and an order of preference  
in which to use it. This could be very well implemented by using user  
defaults. It could be GWorkspace's responsibility to update this  
information on launch - might also be the responsibility of a script  
(analogue to make_services) which gets triggered by GWorkspace.  
Preferences.app should implement editing of the default values, like  
the Internet.prefPane does on Mac OS X.

Cheers,

  Marcus

--
Marcus Mueller  .  .  .  crack-admin/coder ;-)
Mulle kybernetiK  .  http://www.mulle-kybernetik.com
Current projects: finger znek@mulle-kybernetik.com