gnome "storage" project, smart windows

['Forum Post]

"Searching" is the problem. It's a stupid idea for a machine which you
control. I cannot tell the folks at wired where to put their pages, but
I most certainly can do this on my own machine.

I've been working on a project that solves this from the ground up; it
works with legacy systems via "snooping" on selected folders and
squirreling things away as they appear. Files are stored in a fixed
heirarchy and their metadata stored in an easily accessed sqlite
database (of course it could be made "real" sql if needed).

In an image containing about 50,000 files I can "search" and (for
example) buuild an mp3 playlist or an image collection in the time it
takes to type the constraints and hit enter. Because the original paths
are also stored as metadata this also works just dandy with systme files
- for example, every debian package downloaded via synaptic gets
catalogued and then symbolically linked back into the "cache." This is
a zero maintenance way to build a local repository.

Right now it's all command line stuff. I was working on a python
interface but had a crash two days ago that cost me my desktop at the
time and it's taken me until now to get this machine back up. 

slocate has been a part of linux since about forever. It's stable,
fast, and mature - it's just stupid to redesign that functionality from
the ground up just so you can piggyback on the latest gee-whiz memory
gobbling design platform.


-- 
poptones