Bridge

Revision 11 as of 2012-06-19 21:26:21

Clear message

The Bridge (working title) is an indicator providing quick access to previous actions, files and websites related to your current activity.

Rationale

User stories

  • Jan is writing an article for her blog: she checks several Wikipedia pages, discusses some details with a contact in Empathy, takes a screenshot and publishes it. A month later, she opens the article in a web browser: the Bridge provides her links to the related Wikipedia pages, the name of the contact and the screenshot file.
  • Jon is reading an article containing several links, he visits some of them and finds a video he downloads. Whenever he plays the video, the Bridge provides him the webpage he downloaded it from and a link to the original article.
  • Jen is writing a python application. In the process, she reads a lot of documentation and asks questions on Stackoverflow. Whenever she opens her code in Gedit, the Bridge provides her links to the documentation she used and questions she asked.
  • Jin is editing a audio file with Ardour, made of several sound samples coming from an online sound database and from his personal collection. Whenever he plays the finished track, the Bridge provides him a link to the sound database and the samples used.

Current state

bridge_shot.png

Process

  1. The title of the focused window is parsed to keep only the part relevant to a specific file/website/activity
  2. This string is used to query Zeitgeist for a matching recent event
  3. This event is used to query Zeitgeist for related events
  4. These related events are used to build the menu of the indicator
  5. If it fails, the indicator is not displayed
  6. The process stops until a change is detected in the window title or if another window is focused.

  1. A list of items, relevant to the active window, presented with their preview icon, favicon, mimetype icon or application icon, in this order of preference.
  2. A separator.
  3. A "Focus on <window title>" checkbox item. When active, the indicator icon is dimmed and window tracking is disabled. The Bridge will keep its focus on this specific window.

HUD integration

In the HUD, results from the Bridge are presented in the form "Related Activities > item"

Getting Involved

  • Installing

  • Name proposals :
    • Bridge
    • The Bridge
    • ...
  • Panel icon proposals (ubuntu-mono light and dark) :
    • bridge-radiance.svg

    • ...