Re: GUI Protocol

On Enj , 2004-04-15 at 16:32 -0400, A. Craig West wrote:
> We should probably decide what changes need to be made to the GUI protocol. I
> know Meredydd is wanting to switch to a better authentication system than the
> current cookie system, for example. I would also like to see some sort of
> redundancy put in, seeing as currently the protocol doesn't really have any.
> Theoretically any string of bytes is legally parsable, which makes it very
> difficult for either end to resynchronize if it get's confused in any way.
> I would like to have some type of begin and/or end marker that we can use to
> find the next command in such cases. I suppose it really shouldn't be
> necessary, but it would be good to have a way of at least detecting that we
> are talking to a confused client. My logs are definitely showing cases where
> somebody doesn't know where they are in the protocol...

A better authentication system would be great. Also, allowing SSL
support for
connecting clients to the eb-lite daemon might be a good idea. There are
also
other additions and improvements I would like to see. Being able to get
the
http: URL for the yahoo frame-by-frame web cam stuff, and the HTTP
cookies that
the yahoo protocol sends back over the wire when you log in, would be
awesome.
It would also be great if we could implement a better authentication
system for
the protocols we want to connect to. Requiring the user to store their
password
in the eb-lite preferences, in plain text, is really annoying. We also
need a
way for the client to be able to get all of the preferences for a
specific protocol,
before we actually add the local account. Having to add the account, and
then set
up what server/port/etc... to connect to, is rather annoying.

These are just some of the more annoying things to me, that makes it
harder for
me to develop my UI. Anyway, I hope we can get some sort of agreement on
some of
these and get them fixed soon. Will make everybuddy much nicer to
use. :)

-- dobey