Re: web intents agent !== user agent

Can you say more about what you mean by the "web intents agent"? For
web content, I do see the UA as the mediating agent that gets notified
when web content invokes and intent, and which delivers intents to web
content. I'm not sure another option makes sense.

The UA is pretty unconstrained by the spec in terms of what process
handles intents, though -- it is free to delegate dispatch, or adapt
dispatch to local OS-level processes.


On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Jean-Claude Dufourd
<jean-claude.dufourd@telecom-paristech.fr> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Web Intents, as in the current draft, is implemented entirely within the
> User Agent.
> If the UA does not know of an intent, it cannot be invoked.
> In a sense, the way the spec is written, the Web Intents Agent MUST be the
> User Agent.
> I think that is wrong, architecturally speaking, in the sense of
> "architecture of the web".
>
> I remember a discussion about a hierarchy of intent directories: if the UA
> does not know about an intent, it should pass the buck to a higher
> authority, possibly recursively.
> The model is that there may be an intent register at the device level, one
> at the home level, one at the ISP level, etc.
> The way the draft is written means EVERYTHING has to be done by the UA, and
> I do not see how the model I describe could be realized with the current
> draft.
>
> From a different point of view, I am sure there is a missing feature here,
> in the sense that the directory of intents that is meaningful to "me as a
> user" is NOT tied to a browser, nor to a particular computer or computing
> device, nor to a location (home or office), etc. So the current draft is
> "mistaken" in focusing everything on the UA rather than on the user.
>
> It is OK to have a default implementation of the Web Intents Agent (WIA)
> inside the User Agent, but it should be possible to supercede it with a more
> powerful implementation, or one with a more secure approach (e.g. webinos).
> For example, the UA-native implementation would just have one single,
> non-hierarchical WIA.
> But then, if I am an advanced user, I should be able to switch to a WIA e.g.
> with multiple "circles" (me, family, friends).
>
> And I should be able to share a Web Intents configuration regardless of
> which browser I am using at any time or on any device (specially if the
> device forces me to use one browser).
>
> Does this make sense to others ?
> Best regards
> JC
>
> --
> JC Dufourd
> Directeur d'Etudes/Professor
> Groupe Multimedia/Multimedia Group
> Traitement du Signal et Images/Signal and Image Processing
> Telecom ParisTech, 37-39 rue Dareau, 75014 Paris, France
> Tel: +33145817733 - Mob: +33677843843 - Fax: +33145817144
>
>

Received on Monday, 4 June 2012 17:39:01 UTC