Nat Friedman posted recently some new screenshots from within his Novell Desktop showing Beagle, the Dashboard evolution. Beagle indexes the file system for intelligent searches similar to Apple’s Spotlight solution. It is also capable on searching the internet while integrates well with many Gnome apps like Evolution and Gaim, including file selectors. Notice how the spatial Nautilus opens a new window for each search, containing only the search results.
Beagle is Shaping Up on Novell’s Desktop
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..but I’m still not convinced about spatial browsing though. Anyone know what the window decoration is?
It is Ximian’s own Industrial metatheme.
He should probably blank out the phone #’s, esp since MdI has drawn fire for Mono or “selling out” from the more extreme OS elements. I don’t see an email to contact NF on any of the related sites.
Don’t show these to David.
Does KDE have any feature remotely like this?
> Don’t show these to David.
At the same time, the suse desktop folks (e.g, Waldo Bastian) /seem/ to be saying that both KDE and GNOME will be part of Novell desktop, and that SUSE is working on the KDE side. *shrug*. See http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=8006
There does seem to be a huge duplication of effort though. The Ximian folks are developing Evolution while the SUSE folks are happilly hacking away at Kontact. The Ximian folks are hacking away at making OpenOffice more GNOME-ish, while the SUSE folks are hacking away at making OpenOffice more KDE-ish.
*shrug*.. I would have picked one desktop.. but effort. Probably a hybrid of the desktops in fact. Probably KDE with Evolution. Or something like that.
> ooks great but no compair to fedora core 2 with kde 3.2
You’re right: there’s no comparison. Different desktops with very different strengths and weaknesses.
Of course, that’s a comparison. 😉
> Does KDE have any feature remotely like this?
Yeah. kdenonbeta/gadget seems to be a hybrid of this and sherlock/watson. Web services meets the desktop. Not sure how far along it is, the author, Zack Rusin, always has tons of uncommited code about 🙂
Would this tool be licensed under the GPL, or is it proprietary?
Its under a X11/Apache license.
Have you used it spatial nautilus ? I have and I like it ! Opening windows with my middle mouse button and having the previous window close behind me while the new one opens is awesome ! Not to mention that the windows size and settings stick when I re-open a previous window which is what I really like. oh and being able quicky to go back up a directory tree by clicking on the little menu at the bottom of the file browser window is also cool. I like it better then what windows old file browser.
If I didn’t know the context at hand I would have assumed those compliments were about Windows explorer…ive said too much ;|
The Nautilus/Beagle integration looks great!
After I heard that the Beagle project may be picking up where the Gnome storage project seemed to have stoped I was hoping to see some real innovation come to realization. I was especially hopeful that since it was using C# that it may be a killer app which could promote the mono movement. What I see here looks like nothing more than a common file search utility. I don’t really see what the big deal is. Does it tie in meta-data? Does it allow abstract indexing? Does the search allow natural langauge interface? If somebody can explain the strengths or goals of this project with respect to what search mechanisms already exist it would really help. Currently it seems to do a lot less than the search utility in Windows XP, please tell me I’m wrong.
Nat, please make your icons a little bit bigger. I can’t quite see them.
You’re wrong.
Look closely at the shots. He is searching files, logged IM conversations, the net, browser history, music collections, picture collections, sent/received email from evolution, etc. all from the same tool. There is some overlap with storage, such as treated searches like “live queries” that can be tied to folder-like objects. Really, though, this is just kick-ass search that is pervasively integrated with all major GNOME desktop technologies.
I’ve been playing around with a earlier release of beagle. Its painfully apparent that I need to get this new version. Its definately a killer feature for mono for me.
As for spatial, I like it. I find that it works really well. Especially if you don’t want to leave the keyboard.
Damn, that kicks ass! Great job everyone who’s been working on this. It looks great.
The size of the icons seem to be alittle too small, it hurst my eyes.
Ximian demostrated this technology at the GUADEC 2004 in Norway. I don’t remeber, but I think it was the keynote the first day. Very intresting technology!
@Brad Griffith
Yeah, I guess it is pretty cool. I suppose I was just expecting something a little more on par with WinFS. I think this tool would be really neat if it was cross platform and maybe not tied as much to Gnome. I’m going to start working on a different way of organizing data soon but I’m aiming at making it completely with the .NET part of mono so that anybody can use it. Hopefully using extensions such as the ones for WinFS people will be able to add visibility plugins for all kinds of data.
Yeah, the technology that Ximian is touting as covering a lot of the WinFS like functionality is the backend to iFolder, known as Simias. Go to ifolder.com to check it out and see if it is capable of working for some of the things you have in mind (also, iFolder/Simias works in Windows and Linux).
I thought WindFS is microsofts database, metadata-like, new file system and Novell’s iFolder allows you to synchronize files remotely and stuff.
What don’t I understand and where do these technologies cross paths?
Well, it may be that NOW it does less than the fabled WinFS technology, but… beagle is here NOW (even if only in cvs/unstable state). WinFS is vapor until further prove, and won’t be out officially before Longhorn, which means… don’t remember.. a year and a half to wait (at least)?
I guess that in a few months beagle will be adopted in the more dynamic distros (gentoo, obviously, then fedora and mandrake, probably).
WinFS is MS’s SQL Server driven extension to NTFS. iFolder is for file sync and sharing, you are right. However, the backend to iFolder – Simias – is simply a robust metadata engine and file system abstraction layer that can be used to accomplish many of the same things as WinFS. iFolder is only one application of the technology in Simias.
Also I’ll be interested to see how far Beagle goes. I mean it really needs more integration if you ask me. Gnome needs to take a page from Apple and have the search box as a part of the actual spatial browser. If the idea of this technology is to help alleviate the pain of having to develop elaborate file orgranization by powerful searching then it needs much more integration.
I know it’s only a beta but I imagine integrating beagle will not make some members of th gnome crowd (redhat guys) too happy and this can only be a bad thing since it’s really quite essential. I think we’re already clearly seeing how C# is going to be a key language in gnome development. Really thought I think this already shows the strength of this language just by how fast beagle is progressing (no I’m not saying some other language couldn’t do it so please don’t take this as C# rules the world, it’s a nice language however…).
How can search a file on spatial nautilus ?
is there something or shortcut for this ?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Novell’s push to get Mono integrated as an integral part of GNOME causes a fork. For shame, for shame…
a fork ?
no i don’t believe it. the only hackers who hope to fork
gnome if will be integrated with mono are redhat’s developers.
btw there is a ton of supporters who try to push mono on gnome.
If RedHat forks Gnome, just because Mono is a dependency, I guess I’m going to have to find another distro, possibly Suse w/t Ximian Red Carpet. It would be a shame as I happen to really like Fedora Core.
If RedHat forks Gnome, just because Mono is a dependency, I guess I’m going to have to find another distro, possibly Suse w/t Ximian Red Carpet. It would be a shame as I happen to really like Fedora Core.
—-
mono is not a dependency for gnome and likely to stay that way
…has been available in this application for Windows for years:
http://www.vbrad.com/pf.asp?p=source/prg_qsearch.htm
You set it to run a scheduled update at night. It indexes all files on your PC. And then your searches are much, much faster. I haven’t used Windows Search feature in 2 or 3 years.
Regards
“mono is not a dependency for gnome and likely to stay that way”
i respectful disagree.
mono off course not depend on gnome but some strategic apps
will.
nautilus-mono evolution-sharp beagle f-spot dashboard
d-bus-sharp galago (this is a promettent presence library )
monodevelop muine ecc ecc.
so if red hat would’nt include this features onto dist
then will do novell….
so mono now can stay away from gnome for now,but im not sure that in future will be so.
This early stage of Beagle is all about the infrastructure. Its about integrating searchability with gnome-vfs and nautilus. Because of the modular nature of those two projects and the powerful inheritance schema of C#/Mono, it will be easy to bring Beagle to best-of-breed status very quickly…or at least to the point where heated debates over Beagle/Spotlight superiority exist on these forums.
All the tools are there (mySQL, GNOME’s new MIME-type system, parts of GNOME Storage, Reiser4) to revolutionize file management. Plus, all of these projects have been designed from the start to either be a module or to integrate modules. It is only a matter of time before we can use intelligent querying to find and open anything we want quickly and transparently, without any any knoweldge of location or file-type.
Don’t show these to David.
Hello there, Novell employee
. So which distro is it installed on, and where can I buy it?
When I see it installed and being used in a commercial product then it will be promising. The same goes for the work Suse does on KDE, or Longhorn.
At the same time, the suse desktop folks (e.g, Waldo Bastian) /seem/ to be saying that both KDE and GNOME will be part of Novell desktop
That is the case – as I saw it at Linuxworld. And showing something at a trade show is still vapourware because people show you nice looking screenshots and show the functionality they want you to see.
Where does this information come from? Are specific functions of specific apps being depended on? Or is part of beagle/dashboard to create a ubiquitous information backend for contacts/bookmarks/history/IM converstations/etc.
If the answer is that such a backend is being planned and developed then I say. Very very cool.
If we are (and I’m afraid this is what is really going on) really just talking to gaim/epiphany/etc then I say that is really lame.
Why? Because what if I want to write a new IM client that can be part of this system. Then do I have to have gaim as a requirement for my IM client? That would be strange. What if I am a developer of galeon and I want my history to appear in beagle also? See? Lame. Also, what if I want to do something like beagle? Then do I have to go through all the work of connecting up to all these resources again? Lame again.
Beagle should be creating a generic information service backend structure that they are connecting to for all this info. Then people like gaim and galeon developers can either create if it doesn’t already exist or use if it does a bookmarks or history plugin to this system to both read and write bookmarks/history/etc. That way, all developers of all related apps can benefit (except of course epiphany developers who will loose their lockin!)
This is a really good system that can be rolled out incrementally also because for the time being, for expediency, the backend plugins can simply hook up to functions in epiphany or gaim or whatever. Then later as the, for example, bookmarks plugin comes up, epiphany developers can port their bookmark systems to this new global system.
It seems like this is sort of like how evolution data server wants to work and that is very cool but the scope of evolution-data-server is way too small. It should include every type of concievable information that apps might want to share: bookmarks, history, email, IM, contancts, playlists, passwords (maybe a bad idea), etc, etc.
> Don’t show these to David.
At the same time…
I was referring to David’s pig-headed insistance that all this was “vaporware”.
Yeah. kdenonbeta/gadget seems to be a hybrid of this and sherlock/watson. Web services meets the desktop. Not sure how far along it is, the author, Zack Rusin, always has tons of uncommited code about 🙂
That’s the sort of stuff I was asking for in our previous Novell related colloquy. I wish you would have posted something like that instead of telling me I really didn’t want any information.
Hello there, Novell employee
. So which distro is it installed on, and where can I buy it?
David can’t buy != “vaporware”.
<i.When I see it installed and being used in a commercial product then it will be promising. The same goes for the work Suse does on KDE, or Longhorn.[/i]
Then your definition of “vaporware” is contrary to the entire rest of the technical world. If you like being contrary and hijacking existing terms, fitting them with your own special meanings, then be my guest.
At the same time, the suse desktop folks (e.g, Waldo Bastian) /seem/ to be saying that both KDE and GNOME will be part of Novell desktop
I’m sure they will. However, all integration of existing Novell technology is being done with Gnome or Gnome related GTK programs. Not QT.
That is the case – as I saw it at Linuxworld. And showing something at a trade show is still vapourware because people show you nice looking screenshots and show the functionality they want you to see.
That would be called “unreleased software”. Go on chewin’ that peyote though if it makes you happy.
“mono is not a dependency for gnome and likely to stay that way”
i respectful disagree.
mono off course not depend on gnome but some strategic apps
will.
nautilus-mono evolution-sharp beagle f-spot dashboard
d-bus-sharp galago (this is a promettent presence library )
monodevelop muine ecc ecc.
so if red hat would’nt include this features onto dist
then will do novell….
so mono now can stay away from gnome for now,but im not sure that in future will be so.
——-
lets see. beagle can be replaced by gnome storage. fspot is just a photo management application. we have plenty of alternatives. dashboard has no proper code evolution. dbus sharp is just a binding to dbus from fd.o . galago doesnt depend on mono. muine is again a simple music player. so yes gnome can stay non dependant on mono forever
David can’t buy != “vaporware”.
Until people can buy it, it can’t be used and it can’t be verified. Screenshots and demos mean nothing.
Then your definition of “vaporware” is contrary to the entire rest of the technical world. If you like being contrary and hijacking existing terms, fitting them with your own special meanings, then be my guest.
I’m not interested in technicalities, I’m interested in stuff I can use, now, in a business. If you call that hijacking then fine, but that’s what matters. That’s why Ximian never made it as an independent business, and if you are symptematic of them then we’re not likely to see anything soon
.
That’s the bottom line, and that’s what Novell are supposed to be working towards. Nothing less will do.
I’m sure they will. However, all integration of existing Novell technology is being done with Gnome or Gnome related GTK programs. Not QT.
That’s not integration I’m afraid. Are they re-writing Groupwise, Zenworks and core software etc. with GTK or Gnome technologies? Er, no. Ximian have produced a groupware connector – as you can get with Outlook. I suppose there will be one for Kontact, if there’s demand for Groupwise – which there isn’t.
Where’s the Ximian integration with Suse – the Enterprise Linux Division of Novell? Where’s the YaST support?
That would be called “unreleased software”. Go on chewin’ that peyote though if it makes you happy.
Until you see it doing what it is supposed to be doing in a production environment, it never has the features or anything that anyone has promised. Unreleased software means nothing, as we have seen from Microsoft over the years. Now where was that object filesystem in NT4, and I think it was even demonstrated….
I can safely say that you’ve never been near working for a company like Novell in your life – nor will you ever do so.
“That’s why Ximian never made it as an independent business”
ROFL! That’s why Ximian grew so much the past years. Not only financially. That’s why they got bought out for a shitload of money. Just because a company got bought out doesn’t say they never “made it as an independant business”. Get your numbers straight for a second!