path: root/spec/Client_Handler.xml

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<node name="/Client_Handler"
  xmlns:tp="http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/DbusSpec#extensions-v0">
  <tp:copyright>Copyright © 2008-2009 Collabora Ltd.</tp:copyright>
  <tp:copyright>Copyright © 2008-2009 Nokia Corporation</tp:copyright>
  <tp:license xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <p>This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
      modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
      License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
      version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.</p>

    <p>This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
      Lesser General Public License for more details.</p>

    <p>You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
      License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
      Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
      02110-1301, USA.</p>
  </tp:license>

  <interface name="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Handler">
    <tp:added version="0.17.26">(as a stable interface)</tp:added>

    <tp:requires interface="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client"/>

    <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
      <p>Handlers are the user interface for a channel. They turn an abstract
        Telepathy channel into something the user wants to see, like a text
        message stream or an audio and/or video call.</p>

      <p>For its entire lifetime, each channel on a connection known to the
        channel dispatcher is either being processed by the channel dispatcher,
        or being handled by precisely one Handler.</p>

      <p>Because each channel is only handled by one Handler, handlers may
        perform actions that only make sense to do once, such as acknowledging
        <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Type">Text</tp:dbus-ref>
        messages, doing the actual streaming for <tp:dbus-ref
          namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Type">StreamedMedia</tp:dbus-ref>
        channels with the <tp:dbus-ref
          namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Interface">MediaSignalling</tp:dbus-ref>
        interface, or transferring the file in <tp:dbus-ref
          namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Type">FileTransfer</tp:dbus-ref>
        channels.</p>

      <p>When a new incoming channel (one with
        <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel">Requested</tp:dbus-ref>
        = FALSE) is offered to
        <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client">Approver</tp:dbus-ref>s
        by the channel dispatcher, it also offers the Approvers a list of all
        the running or activatable handlers whose
        <tp:member-ref>HandlerChannelFilter</tp:member-ref> property
        (possibly as cached in the .client file) indicates that they
        are able to handle the channel. The Approvers can choose one of
        those channel handlers to handle the channel.</p>

      <p>When a new outgoing channel (one with
        <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel">Requested</tp:dbus-ref>
        = TRUE) appears, the channel dispatcher passes it to an appropriate
        channel handler automatically.
      </p>

    </tp:docstring>

    <property name="HandlerChannelFilter"
      tp:name-for-bindings="Handler_Channel_Filter"
      type="aa{sv}" access="read" tp:type="Channel_Class[]">
      <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        <p>A specification of the channels that this channel handler can
          deal with. It will be offered to approvers as a potential
          channel handler for bundles that contain only suitable channels,
          or for suitable channels that must be handled separately.</p>

        <p>This property works in exactly the same way as the
          <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy">Client.Observer.ObserverChannelFilter</tp:dbus-ref>
          property. In particular, it cannot change while the handler process
          continues to own the corresponding Client bus name.</p>

        <p>In the .client file, it is represented in the
          same way as ObserverChannelFilter, but the group has the same
          name as this interface and the keys start with
          HandlerChannelFilter instead of ObserverChannelFilter.</p>
      </tp:docstring>
    </property>

    <property name="BypassApproval" tp:name-for-bindings="Bypass_Approval"
      type="b" access="read">
      <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        <p>If true, channels destined for this handler are automatically
          handled, without invoking approvers.</p>

        <tp:rationale>
          <p>The intended usage is to allow a client handling one channel to
            pick up closely related channels. Suppose a client capable of
            handling both Text and StreamedMedia,
            <code>org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Empathy</code>, is
            handling a StreamedMedia channel. That client can take a second
            well-known bus name, say
            <code>org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Empathy._1._42.Bundle1</code>,
            and configure an object at
            <code>/org/freedesktop/Telepathy/Client/Empathy/_1/_42/Bundle1</code>
            with BypassApproval = TRUE,
            whose <tp:member-ref>HandlerChannelFilter</tp:member-ref>
            matches closely related Text channels by their Bundle property.
            (This is use-case dis5)</p>
        </tp:rationale>

        <p>For service-activatable handlers, this property should be specified
          in the handler's <tt>.client</tt> file as follows:</p>

<pre>
[org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Handler]
BypassApproval=true
</pre>
      </tp:docstring>
    </property>

    <tp:simple-type name="Handler_Capability_Token" type="s"
      array-name="Handler_Capability_Token_List">
      <tp:docstring>
        A <tp:type>DBus_Interface</tp:type>, followed by a slash '/' character
        and an identifier for a capability defined by that interface. The
        capability identifier SHOULD be in lower case. If an interface
        references an external specification which is case-insensitive (such
        as MIME), then names from that specification MUST be normalized to
        lower-case before providing them to this Telepathy API, so that
        implementations can safely rely on simple byte-by-byte comparison.

        <tp:rationale>
          These aren't D-Bus core Properties, and we want them to look visibly
          different.
        </tp:rationale>

        <p>So far, all client capabilities are defined by the <tp:dbus-ref
            namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Interface">MediaSignalling</tp:dbus-ref>
          interface.</p>
      </tp:docstring>
    </tp:simple-type>

    <property name="Capabilities" tp:name-for-bindings="Capabilities"
      type="as" tp:type="Handler_Capability_Token[]" access="read">
      <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        <p>The set of additional capabilities supported by this handler.
          This describes things like support for streamed media codecs and
          NAT traversal mechanisms: see the Contact Capabilities
          interface for more details.</p>

        <p>For handlers that have a <code>.client</code> file, the
          channel dispatcher may discover this property from the
          <code>org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Handler.Capabilities</code>
          group; for each capability, that group contains a key
          whose name is the capability, with value <code>true</code>.
          Keys with other values SHOULD NOT appear in this group.</p>

        <p>For instance, the <code>.client</code> file for a streamed media
          handler that supports ICE-UDP NAT traversal, Speex audio,
          and Theora and H264 video might contain this group:</p>

<pre>
[org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Handler.Capabilities]
org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Interface.MediaSignalling/ice-udp=true
org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Interface.MediaSignalling/audio/speex=true
org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Interface.MediaSignalling/video/theora=true
org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Channel.Interface.MediaSignalling/video/h264=true
</pre>

        <p>Like the <tp:member-ref>HandlerChannelFilter</tp:member-ref>
          property, this property cannot change while the Handler owns its
          Client bus name. However, the <code>.client</code> file, if any,
          can change (due to upgrades or installation of pluggable codecs),
          and the capabilities really supported by the handler might not
          exactly match what is cached in the <code>.client</code> file.</p>

        <tp:rationale>
          <p>The client file is installed statically and is intended to list
            codecs etc. that the handler guarantees it can support (e.g. by
            having a hard dependency on them), whereas the running handler
            process might be able to find additional codecs.</p>
        </tp:rationale>
      </tp:docstring>
    </property>

    <method name="HandleChannels" tp:name-for-bindings="Handle_Channels">
      <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        <p>Called by the channel dispatcher when this client should handle these
          channels, or when this client should present channels that it is already
          handling to the user (e.g. bring them into the foreground).</p>

        <tp:rationale>
          <p>Clients are expected to know what channels they're already handling,
            and which channel object path corresponds to which window or tab.
            This can easily be done using a hash table keyed by channels' object
            paths.</p>
        </tp:rationale>

        <p>This method can raise any D-Bus error. If it does, the
          handler is assumed to have failed or crashed, and the channel
          dispatcher MUST recover in an implementation-specific way; it MAY
          attempt to dispatch the channels to another handler, or close the
          channels.</p>

        <p>If closing the channels, it is RECOMMENDED that the channel
          dispatcher attempts to close the channels using
          <tp:dbus-ref
            namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy">Channel.Close</tp:dbus-ref>,
          but resorts to calling
          <tp:dbus-ref
            namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy">Channel.Interface.Destroyable.Destroy</tp:dbus-ref>
          (if available) or ignoring the channel (if not) if the same handler
          repeatedly fails to handle channels.</p>

        <p>After HandleChannels returns successfully, the client process is
          considered to be responsible for the channel until it its unique
          name disappears from the bus.</p>

        <tp:rationale>
          <p>If a process has multiple Client bus names - some temporary and
            some long-lived - and drops one of the temporary bus names in order
            to reduce the set of channels that it will handle, any channels
            that it is already handling should remain unaffected.</p>
        </tp:rationale>
      </tp:docstring>

      <arg name="Account" type="o" direction="in">
        <tp:docstring>
          The
          <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy">Account</tp:dbus-ref>
          with which the channels are associated. The
          well-known bus name to use is that of the
          <tp:dbus-ref namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy">AccountManager</tp:dbus-ref>.
        </tp:docstring>
      </arg>

      <arg name="Connection" type="o" direction="in">
        <tp:docstring>
          The Connection with which the channels are associated. The
          well-known bus name to use can be derived from this object
          path by removing the leading '/' and replacing all subsequent
          '/' by '.'.
        </tp:docstring>
      </arg>

      <arg name="Channels" type="a(oa{sv})" direction="in"
        tp:type="Channel_Details[]">
        <tp:docstring>
          The channels and their immutable properties. Their well-known
          bus name is the same as that of the Connection.
        </tp:docstring>
      </arg>

      <arg name="Requests_Satisfied" type="ao" direction="in">
        <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
          <p>The requests satisfied by these channels.</p>

          <tp:rationale>
            <p>If the handler implements Requests, this tells it
              that these channels match previous <tp:dbus-ref
                namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy.Client.Interface.Requests">AddRequest</tp:dbus-ref>
              calls that it may have received.</p>

            <p>There can be more than one, if they were EnsureChannel
              requests.</p>
          </tp:rationale>
        </tp:docstring>
      </arg>

      <arg name="User_Action_Time" type="t" direction="in">
        <tp:docstring>
          The time at which user action occurred, or 0 if this channel
          is to be handled for some reason not involving user action.
          Handlers SHOULD use this for focus-stealing prevention,
          if applicable.
          This property has the same semantic as <tp:type>User_Action_Timestamp</tp:type>
          but is unsigned for historical reasons.
        </tp:docstring>
      </arg>

      <arg name="Handler_Info" type="a{sv}" direction="in">
        <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
          <p>Additional information about these channels. Currently defined
            keys are:</p>

          <dl>
            <dt><code>request-properties</code> - a{oa{sv}}</dt>
            <dd>A map from <tp:dbus-ref
              namespace="org.freedesktop.Telepathy">ChannelRequest</tp:dbus-ref>
              paths listed in <var>Requests_Satisfied</var> to
              <tp:type>Qualified_Property_Value_Map</tp:type>s containing
              namespaced immutable properties of each request.</dd>
          </dl>

          <p>When more keys are defined for this dictionary, all will be
            optional; handlers MAY safely ignore any entry in this
            dictionary.</p>
        </tp:docstring>
      </arg>

      <!-- FIXME: invent a way to say "any error is possible" in spec markup -->
    </method>

    <property name="HandledChannels" tp:name-for-bindings="Handled_Channels"
      type="ao" access="read">
      <tp:docstring xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        <p>A list of the channels that this process is currently handling.</p>

        <p>There is no change notification.</p>

        <tp:rationale>
          <p>This property exists for state recovery - it makes it possible
            for channel handling to survive a ChannelDispatcher crash.</p>

          <p>If the channel dispatcher is automatically replaced, the
            replacement can discover all Handlers by looking for the Client
            well-known bus names, and discover which channels they are
            currently handling. Once this has been done, all unhandled
            channels can be re-dispatched, and the only issue visible to
            the user is that unhandled channels that they have already
            approved might be sent back to Approvers.</p>
        </tp:rationale>

        <p>The value of this property SHOULD be the same for all Client
          instances that share a unique bus name, and SHOULD include all
          channels that are being handled, even if they were conceptually
          handled by a different Client instance.</p>

        <tp:rationale>
          <p>Otherwise, when a process released a temporary Client name,
            channels that it handled because of that Client name would no
            longer be state-recoverable.</p>
        </tp:rationale>
      </tp:docstring>
    </property>

  </interface>
</node>
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