[sugar] Collaboration in an activity

[Morgan Collett]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 6:55 PM, Urko Fernandez <tturktime at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  Before I start coding any collaboration implementation for my activity,
>  I would like to know which approach is best for what I'm willing to do.
>  In my scenario, if a user joins an activity for the first time, she
>  downloads the file, which in my case is an SQLite database. Next time,
>  she would ask for new content to fill/merge her database, so I was
>  thinking about sending query results.
>  For sending files I've seen that stream tubes are used in Read activity,
>  and many examples use D-Bus tubes (Write, Web, Connect...) for sending
>  python objects. Can I send binary files using D-Bus tubes? Is it
>  possible to send any python object through dbus? I could send the
>  database in some more complex python data type.

Stream Tubes wrap a TCP socket connection between two participants.
This could be http, or any protocol of your choice. That's good for
transfering files to a particular participant.

D-Bus Tubes are more event driven, and signals go to all participants
in the shared activity session - so a way of updating everyone at once
with a small change.

You can certainly use both.

See http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-python/doc/tutorial.html#data-types
for how the types work in dbus-python (and hence D-Bus Tubes). You can
send binary data, and data structured in lists, tuples and dicts.

Feel free to ask more specific questions...

Regards
Morgan