374518 - Provide platform support to enable syncing of Places datamodel objects to a remote server

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

This is a tracking bug for item PLCS-001a in the Firefox 3 PRD.

Comment 1

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

retargeting bugs that don't meet the alpha release-blocker criteria at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3/Schedule.

Comment 2

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Attachment: Example sync implementation (wip)

A rough sketch of what a sync service might look like to sync the places bookmarks to a remote server.

Includes some unnecessary UI I added to test the service.

A sample server is available here (too large to attach to the bug):

http://sandmill.org/~thunder/sync/

Comment 3

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Attachment: Alternate sync service prototype (wip)

This implementation requires no special server-side code.  It uses HTTP 1.1 GET/PUT (and will use WebDAV locks when available, that just needs a little work).

It also supports uploading/downloading deltas (instead of a complete snapshot).  The only thing missing is code to upload a new snapshot when the deltas file grows too big.

Note, this patch includes no UI (it's only the sync service), but I'll upload a simple xpi that adds a toolbar button for testing.

Comment 4

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Attachment: sync toolbar button for testing

Comment 5

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Thunder, is there anything left to do here for platform support? The sync client implementation work should be moved to bug 374519.

Comment 6

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Right, the attachments are here as proofs of concept to prove sync can be implemented with the current API.

I'd like to get some feedback from Foxmarks and/or del.icio.us before closing off this bug, though.  Do you agree?  Both sync implementations here ultimately rely on sync.js, so it would be good to get a second opinion from someone with a different sync approach.

Comment 7

[Henrik Sjostrand]

Hello,

I have been playing around with the code in these attachments but files seem to be missing from the latest Minefield trunk build (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/2007-07-31-05-trunk/, using Windows). We have gotten Helma and Dan Mills' stuff up an running but when clicking the sync test button the following is shown in the Error console:
Error: Cc['@mozilla.org/places/sync-service;1'] has no properties
Source File: chrome://ttb/content/ttb.js Line: 5

Line 5 contains:
syncsvc = 
Cc["@mozilla.org/places/sync-service;1"].getService(Ci.nsIBookmarksSyncService);

Is there anything special that must be configured to enable places/sync-service? Or is it just nsIBookmarksSyncService.js that is missing from the distribution?

Comment 8

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

(In reply to comment #7)

> Error: Cc['@mozilla.org/places/sync-service;1'] has no properties
> Source File: chrome://ttb/content/ttb.js Line: 5

The patches on this bug are proofs of concept only, and haven't been committed to the tree.  So you'd need to apply the patches and make your own builds to try them.

Comment 9

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> (In reply to comment #7)
> 
> > Error: Cc['@mozilla.org/places/sync-service;1'] has no properties
> > Source File: chrome://ttb/content/ttb.js Line: 5
> 
> The patches on this bug are proofs of concept only, and haven't been committed
> to the tree.  So you'd need to apply the patches and make your own builds to
> try them.
> 

It'd be cool if these were converted to an extension, so that it could be used as a starting point for extension developers. Dan, what would it take to be able to do this?

Comment 10

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

I think it would be pretty easy, specially for the 2nd patch.  I'll add that to my todo list.

Comment 11

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Right, the attachments are here as proofs of concept to prove sync can be
> implemented with the current API.
> 
> I'd like to get some feedback from Foxmarks and/or del.icio.us before closing
> off this bug, though.  Do you agree?  Both sync implementations here ultimately
> rely on sync.js, so it would be good to get a second opinion from someone with
> a different sync approach.
> 

pushing to M9 (or later) given that this will be ongoing.

Comment 12

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Attachment: Sample sync extension (wip)

Set the 'browser.places.sync.serverUrl' to your own server's URL to try it.  It only requires HTTP GET/PUT as it is (the WebDAV LOCK support is commented out atm).

Comment 13

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Given the prototypes here, and recent conversations with Foxmarks where they said that they can work with the current API, I'm closing this bug as fixed.

Comment 14

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

verified through bake time

Comment 15

[Mikel Ward]

Dan, when I try to install your XPI, I get an error message:

-----
Firefox could not install the file at 

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=275738

because: Install script not found
-204
-----

Is that expected?

Comment 16

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

Hey Mikel,

The extension here is not packaged correctly, you're right, but it eventually became Weave, which you can get at https://services.mozilla.com/

Comment 17

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv