the Zeitgeist engine, but anyway, here goes.
for GNOME, and that reimplementing them would be a waste of resources.
> "Things can safely fall off the desktop"
The timeline leads to this naturally, so we are on the same page.
either, so I will leave that discussion to the Zeitgeist hackers.
user has accessed --- Zeitgeist provides exactly this.
>   projects and other subsets of files.
and such tags" and "this is a search query for tags".
you could be able to "circle" a bunch of files and tag them visually.
> "Timeline view of files"
thumbnails of PDFs than of photos so that they are easier to recognize.
today's view, every time you saved.
>   best supported by something like Tracker.
instantaneous and matches get highlighted in real time.
> "Adding non-files to Desktop"
- Web pages, or those that you bookmark.
- Mails that I sent.
- Mails that I received that have attachments.
- Attachments that I saved.
- IM conversations that I had.
- Files or items that I can drop into future dates.
- With help from Greasemonkey or whatever, google docs that I edited.
>    maps into low-level database operations.
That requires profiling with real apps and real data.
to be for optimal performance, and things like that.
should give us an idea of how to profile this stuff.
>    the user's data is dependent on the use of Tracker.
like f-spot - if it loses your database, you are Royally Screwed(tm).
>    used documents in the last 30 days".
>    push events to it.
in ~/.recently-used, which Zeitgeist feeds from.
The Zeitgeist API is mostly for when you want to log non-file items.
Mails that you got with attachments, web bookmarks, etc.
>    work that Tracker is doing.
APIs, nothing released "in the wild" yet, so changes are feasible.
> filing, etc) the user would probably still be using Nautilus.
> but there is a role for event logging here.
I think implementing your own timeline storage is a waste of time.
question of whether it needs to be integrated with Tracker.
interface is not perfect, of course, but it's there and it works.
Gnome-shell is going to have to accomodate the journal somehow.
using gnome-shell's not-really-a-widget-system approach, sounds painful.
Work, so it deserves sufficient screen real estate.
- Don't reinvent the journal.  Make it work with gnome-shell.
- Thanks for the detailed analysis of the literature.