Re: intents broker == user agent ?

On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:48:38 +0100, timeless <timeless@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Giuseppe Pascale <giuseppep@opera.com>  
> wrote:
>> JC, all
>> as I understand it, Web Intents is just a framework that allow  
>> application
>> to "discover" other application via the mediation of the UA.
>
> discover and communicate.
>
correct

>
>> Furthermore, even if intents provide a way to discover a service,
>> we also
>> need to address the communication part to fully cover the requirements
>> around communication with home network services.
>
> There's a difference between ensuring that there's a way to
> communicate (which should be covered here), and ensuring a requirement
> for a specific transport.
>
agree, but this is one of the important parts.
Once you have discovered your service, you need to know which "protocol"
to speak in order to interact with the service. Keeping in mind that a
service may not be a web application and may not be running on the same
device (at least in our scenario)

Being able to postMessages is fine, but I need to know the format of these
messages. And in the case of UPnP (just to make one example) this format
is already standard. The only missing piece from the puzzle is how do I
send UPnP messages? Do I define a JSON mapping that is actually translated
into SOAP messages from the UA, or can I get an opaque identifier (in
order to preserve privacy) and use XHR to send messages to this?

BTW you can see how this could work via XHR with this Opera extension
https://addons.opera.com/en/addons/extensions/details/teletube/0.9.3/

The question is also (as asked by Dave and others in other threads),
should the communication be limited to postMessage or would be possible to  
extend it to other messaging paradigms already available (e.g. xhr,  
websockets)

>> This last part needs to be done somewhere else (in DAP).
>
> It doesn't necessarily have to be DAP. It might be that you will just
> end up with someone who writes UPnP<->Intents gatewaying code and
> delivers it. You might deliver it to OS vendors (Microsoft, Google,
> Apple), or you might deliver it to Device vendors (HP, Dell, Lenovo,
> IBM), or you might deliver it through Markets (Addons.mozilla.org, App
> World, Apple's Store, Google's Store, Amazon's Store), or you might
> include it on e.g. CDs (or USB sticks or via a link from a QR code)
> which you ship with your UPnP Devices.
sure, I meant dap for those parts that makes sense to discuss there.


-- 
Giuseppe Pascale
TV & Connected Devices
Opera Software

Received on Friday, 25 November 2011 08:15:21 UTC