diff --git a/specs/linkability.md b/specs/linkability.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..02cd49c529b18e5398aa9e28970891cac0eb4ba2 --- /dev/null +++ b/specs/linkability.md @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +Linkability +=========== + +This file has ideas only, so far. Comments welcome. + +Scenarios +--------- + +* soduku app: + * want to share the board layout, but not my progress so far + * want to transfer my progress to another device +* a wikipedia-like app: + * follow links to other topics + * have links from other apps (e.g. search) to a specific subsection of a topic +* an instant-messenger app: + * bookmark specific group conversations +* a social network app: + * link to specific posts + * link to social network constructs like user lists (twitter), communities (g+), walls (fb), users… +* an IDE + * want to save a particular state of open windows, maybe to share with other developers +* Navigation app + * want to link to different modes of the app: nav mode, search page, personal profile, settings, etc + * want to link to specific points of interest, either public (restaurant) or private (home, work, saved locations) + * want to link to a specific map location, zoom level, direction, angle, time of day (for shadows), route (for navigation) + * want to link to a destination in nav mode (without a route) +* Podcast app + * want to link to a specific view (e.g. in doggcatcher, feeds, audio, video, news...) + * want to link to a specific podcast (maybe independently of the app) + * want to link to a specific time in a specific episode of a specific podcast + * save ui state (e.g. size of ui area vs podcast list in doggcatcher, scroll position in a list, specific settings window being on top of specific tab at a specific scroll position, etc) +* News app + * categories + * articles + * sets of categories + * sets of categories + a selected category + a scroll position + * app sections (e.g. Newsstand’s Explore vs Read Now vs My Library) + * specific settings in the settings section of the app +* Code Review Tools + * a specific code review + * a specific file in a specific code review + * code review plus scroll position + * specific comment + * the state of the UI, such as which changes are visible, which comments are expanded, sort settings, filter settings, etc; whether the settings window is open, what tab it’s open to, what field is focused… + +UI +-- + +* Sharing current state to another device using NFC: just put the phones together, the active app(s?) serialise their state to a “URL” and that is sent to the other device +* App exposes a “permalink” or “get link” UI that exposes a string you can Share (a la Android’s Share intent) or copy and paste. +* An accessibility tree should expose the URL of each part of the app so that a user with an accessibility tool can bookmark a particular location in the app to jump to it later. + +Thoughts +-------- + +* Seems like you link to three kinds of things: + * different in-app concepts, which might be shared across apps + * specific posts in a social network + * users + * particular game board starting configurations, game levels + * wikipedia topics + * search results + * POIs in a map + * videos on Vimeo, YouTube, etc + * a code review / CL / pull request + * a comment on a code review + * a file in a code review + * a comment in a blog post + * telephone numbers + * lat/long coordinates + * podcasts + * different top-level parts of the app (shallow state) + * e.g. in Facebook, linking to the stream; in G+, linking to the communities landing page, etc + * in a maps app, the mode (satellite, navigation, etc) + * deep state + * the current state of a particular game board, e.g. all the piece positions in chess, all the current choices in soduku... + * what windows are open, what field is focused, what widgets are expanded, the precise view of a 3D map, etc + * subsection of a topic in wikipedia (scroll position) +* Since almost every app is going to have app-specific items, we need to make the item space trivially extensible (no registry, no fixed vocabulary). This means that common items (e.g. lat/long coordinates, podcasts) will probably evolve conventions organically within communities rather than in a centralised fashion +* We don’t have to use URLs as they are known today, but doing so would leverage the existing infrastructure which might be valuable + +Ideas +----- + +* Two kinds of URLs: application state, and “things”. +* Application state URLs consist of an identifier for the app, plus a blob of data for how to open the app +* Thing URLs identify a thing, either by string name, opaque identifier, or more structured data (e.g. two comma-separated floating point numbers for lat/long). +* Thing URLs have a label saying what they are, e.g. “poi” or “geo” or “cl-comment” or something. +* Maybe “apps” are just things, and going to an app is like picking that app thing from the system app, the same way you’d pick a post from a social network app.