Thursday, September 29, 2005
NewsForge | KDE 4 promises radical changes to the free desktop:
"...One prominent effort in Appeal is Tenor, a "contextual linkage engine." Tenor will gather contextual data -- such as the metadata stored in MP3s, the contents of text files, and relationships between a file and the application that created it -- and present it to applications via another KDE framework. This will allow applications to provide more useful ways of searching files for users. For example, using Tenor an application could bring up a list of "all the images I downloaded from the Web in the past week."
The most obvious application of Tenor would be desktop search, giving KDE an analog to GNOME's brilliant search tool Beagle. But the Tenor project's chief architect, Scott Wheeler, wants to go further, asking, "how can we make it easier to work with the data we accumulate on the desktop?" So rather than just making it easier for users to search for documents, Tenor will provide application developers with data that can transform their interfaces. For example, the KDE Control Center, which currently organizes the configuration modules into a confusing hierarchy, may provide a search interface with results that show related items and learn from usage patterns.
The way Tenor is being developed makes it hard to predict how it will appear to users when KDE 4 comes out. Wheeler has no plans to make any applications that use it, opting instead to provide other developers with a framework that they can use as they see fit. Once the developers come to grips with Tenor, it is likely we will see innovation across the desktop, as searchable, navigable webs of information replace traditional hierarchical structures..."
"...One prominent effort in Appeal is Tenor, a "contextual linkage engine." Tenor will gather contextual data -- such as the metadata stored in MP3s, the contents of text files, and relationships between a file and the application that created it -- and present it to applications via another KDE framework. This will allow applications to provide more useful ways of searching files for users. For example, using Tenor an application could bring up a list of "all the images I downloaded from the Web in the past week."
The most obvious application of Tenor would be desktop search, giving KDE an analog to GNOME's brilliant search tool Beagle. But the Tenor project's chief architect, Scott Wheeler, wants to go further, asking, "how can we make it easier to work with the data we accumulate on the desktop?" So rather than just making it easier for users to search for documents, Tenor will provide application developers with data that can transform their interfaces. For example, the KDE Control Center, which currently organizes the configuration modules into a confusing hierarchy, may provide a search interface with results that show related items and learn from usage patterns.
The way Tenor is being developed makes it hard to predict how it will appear to users when KDE 4 comes out. Wheeler has no plans to make any applications that use it, opting instead to provide other developers with a framework that they can use as they see fit. Once the developers come to grips with Tenor, it is likely we will see innovation across the desktop, as searchable, navigable webs of information replace traditional hierarchical structures..."
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