[jsword-devel] Module conf sidecar

[Chris Burrell]

I agree with the below, in that they are basically things that are
changeable (fonts) by user preference, or at least entered by the user
(CipherKey). But for static reference data, that never changes nor is
changeable, I would prefer to download this.

Perhaps an addition to the sidecar is to allow a frontend to specify a hook
in the installation process. For example, STEP can expose "install a
module".

JSword then takes that, install the module, and then calls any registered
post-installation routines. In this case, perhaps it could go to the
Tyndale Server to download stuff that is useful for STEP (although I think
it would be useful for others too).

In other words, a customizable post-process. In particular, it would be
nice to re-use the download functionality in JSword to download those
sidecars from other servers

Would that work?
Chris



On 3 June 2013 14:05, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org> wrote:

> No it would not be automatic with the download of the module. It would be
> a separate module file to download. Hopefully, it would be opaque to
> front-ends. But right now the download process is not quite opaque.
>
> To have it cached on the server would mean that we'd need to build a
> server process to cache such sidecar information. Or it would have to be a
> manual process. There's a bunch more that would need to be done to make it
> a meaningful process. But something is better than nothing.
>
> The current need is to have the CipherKey stored on the user's local
> machine but not in the conf. If we add a sharing mechanism, ala SWORD (any
> respsitory is a module source) or Xiphos (any module can be zipped up for
> distribution), then the cipher should not be included. The same is true for
> all per user settings.
>
> In Him,
> DM
>
> On Jun 3, 2013, at 8:46 AM, Chris Burrell <chris at burrell.me.uk> wrote:
>
> I like the idea, if as you say, it will be cached on the server. If we can
> have the sidecar downloaded at the same time, that would be good.
>
> But I guess if we're going to do that, then I'm not sure I understand why
> we don't also do this in the .conf file.
>
> But so long as the installation of the module means that sidecar
> information comes with it, then that solves all of my problems.
>
> Chris
>
>
>
> On 3 June 2013 13:42, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org> wrote:
>
>> I've been mulling over whether we need to have a sidecar for a module's
>> conf. A sidecar would be just like a module's conf and would be merged into
>> the internal/core representation of the conf. If there's a
>> conflict/duplicate, the sidecar would win.
>>
>> Today, we store the CiperKey in the module's conf.
>>
>> We also have a mechanism in Bible Desktop to store user preference for
>> Font and some notion of position and size of various windows, so that the
>> user can return to a last known state. I'm pretty certain that per user
>> settings should be a separate consideration. Maybe a second level sidecar
>> for this?
>>
>> I think the sidecar would be used by a front-end to store what it needs
>> to know about a module that is not easy to discover.
>>
>> Examples,
>> Introductions: Does a module have introductions. STEP has a use case for
>> this.
>> Books: Which books are present/missing.
>> Chapters: Which chapters in a book are missing/present.
>> ...
>>
>> We've got a caching mechanism for low powered devices (i.e. AndBible has
>> pre-built indices on the CrossWire Server). Maybe we could do the same for
>> such info.
>>
>> Way back when we had an argument for "download size". It was finally
>> added to the conf, but it took forever. Having a sidecar sidesteps such
>> arguments. (We should still have the discussion).
>>
>> In Him,
>>         DM Smith
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>
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