[Dev] automatically hooking into the sidebar

[John Anderson]

I don't think you should rule out using bidirectional refs because 
everyone is busy -- although there may be other reasons to rule them 
out. We use bidirectional refs in so many places that not being familiar 
with them is a pretty serious handicap. There are lots of examples in 
the code that uses them and I suspect none of us is really too busy to 
answer a question about them now and then.

John

Alec Flett wrote:

> John Anderson wrote:
>
>> As it turns out there are lots of ways to do this. The "kind query" 
>> scheme you're proposing is just one way we've discussed doing it. 
>> Another interesting possibility we've discussed is using 
>> bidirectional references on ref collections, e.g. assigning an 
>> attribute hooks the a corresponding reference on the other end of a 
>> system collection that can be used to find the registered things. 
>> Another possibility we've discusses is executing code at parcel load 
>> time -- which seems not quite as nice as the two previous data driven 
>> schemes. Finally, none of these deal with the possibility of allowing 
>> the user to participate in choosing between registered alternatives, 
>> e.g. choosing between alternative viewers for a particular datatype.
>>
> I agree that a data-driven mechanism is the way to go - at least in 
> the general case. Personally I think that the bi-directional reference 
> with a container system seems like our best bet - my "Kind" mechanism 
> is not ideal. (and I've done code-executing-at-startup and it ends up 
> being pretty ugly)
>
>> I think in the case of the sidebar, however,  it would be nice to 
>> register a new item collection as well as an optional viewer (today 
>> we only have two, table and calendar). However, all this is beyond 
>> the scope of 0.5.
>>
> That's not a problem I'm trying to solve for 0.5 anyway... so that's good.
>
>> This is clearly an area that needs to be fleshed out post 0.5, with 
>> input from UI, design and by considering our other registration 
>> needs, so I think it's premature to add it as described without 
>> further discussion.
>>
> I need it for ZaoBao as a proof-of-concept of extensions actually 
> working in Chandler without being hard coded in. Given the realities 
> of 0.5 (such as me not knowing enough about references in the 
> repository or the parcel loader, and other folks being busy) I'd like 
> to move forward with the "Kind" mechanism and discuss something better 
> (i.e. the bidirectional reference mechanism) as well as the issue of 
> user-intervention, for 0.6.
>
> Alec
>
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