UbuntuOneFirefoxBookmarkSyncing

Summary

We will create a Firefox extension that will enable syncing of bookmarks to UbuntuOne by storing them in the local CouchDB instance (replication of that content is out of scope of this plugin, and is presumably already established functionality). Since the local CouchDB instance operates on a known port, and Firefox 3+ provides bookmark (Places) modification events we can observe, there's no need for any preferences UI.

Release Note

You can now sync your Firefox bookmarks with UbuntuOne.

Rationale

Bookmarks are precious data, and are more useful when shared and easily replicated between machines.

User stories

Initial Sync

Alice has two machines in her house, a desktop and a netbook. Both run Ubuntu Karmic, and she has an UbuntuOne account. She enables bookmark syncing on her desktop computer, and the plugin first syncs the existing bookmarks with UbuntuOne.

The Second Machine

Alice enables bookmark syncing on her netbook, and the plugin syncs existing bookmarks, merging them from UbuntuOne if necessary. Now her bookmarks on the netbook are identical to the bookmarks on the desktop.

The Coffee Shop

Alice takes her netbook to the coffee shop to meet a potential client. He shows her some sites he's mocked up, and she bookmarks them for later research. When she returns home, the new bookmarks are already available on her desktop version of Firefox.

Assumptions

Conflict resolution is handled by CouchDB. This extension just pulls and pushes the collection of bookmarks.

Design

You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.

Implementation

Firefox extensions are bundles of XML, Javascript, and auxiliary resources.

UI Changes

This first version will have little to no UI. Since we're operating on a known port and we'll be responding to javascript events, we don't need to establish host/port or frequency.

Code Changes

N/A

Migration

N/A

Test/Demo Plan

1. Enable the extension

2. Allow extension to sync bookmarks

3. Verify through CouchDB's REST API that bookmarks are there.

4. Add bookmark in browser.

5. Enable the extension on another computer.

6. Verify that new bookmark is present on another computer after sync.

Unresolved issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

CategorySpec

UbuntuOneFirefoxBookmarkSyncing (last edited 2009-06-16 20:28:08 by pool-96-248-6-186)