fluidinfo.el / fluiddb.el

fluidinfo.el is a set of Emacs Lisp files to support working with Fluidinfo. (fluiddb.el is a legacy file using the old name "fluiddb" where now "fluidinfo" is used.)

This support comes at two levels:

• low-level support to do all API calls directly from Emacs, and
• a high-level interface to browse Fluidinfo from within Emacs.

Note that the low-level support is currently only for synchronous calls. Ideally we'll support a parallel set of asynchronous calls in the future.

The high-level interface is still in development, allows read-only access only so far and is still lacking support to view permissions and policies.

Dependencies

You will need the json.el package. I found mine via EmacsWiki here.

The code makes use of url.el which is now shipped with Emacs.
For older Emacs versions you will need to install that yourself -- very old versions don't seem to work according to user reports but Emacs 22 seems to be ok.

You will also need a user account on the Fluidinfo server (not strictly necessary for the pure browsing operations).
Either sign up on the web site and then get your password on the #fluidinfo IRC channel or send an email to api@fluidinfo.com.

The high-level interface

Note that this "high-level" interface still requires good understanding of the Fluidinfo workings; it is not intended for the general user but for people developing against Fluidinfo to inspect and change data.

You enter the high-level interface by invoking one of these functions:

• fluidinfo-browse-user (user-name)
• fluidinfo-browse-namespace (namespace-name)
• fluidinfo-browse-tag (namespace-and-tag)
• fluidinfo-browse-query (query)
• fluidinfo-browse-object (guid)

You will find yourself in a Fluidinfo specific buffer.

At any time the g key will re-load the current buffer (re-fetch the data and completely re-draw the buffer).

Use the b and f keys to navigate in the browsing history (just like the back and forward button on your web browser).

Use TAB and S-TAB to navigate the active regions of the buffer.

While the cursor is on an active region you can usually press RET to do the common browsing action for the current object (e.g. to browse to that object when on a tag name, user name, etc.). Often v works to view that object in a temporary buffer.

The key sequences B u, B n, B t, B q, and B o can be used browse a complete unrelated instance (user, namespace, tag, query, and object respectively) not reachable via some active region.

Where it makes sense (currently implemented only for the query results view) you can press t to fetch object tag values for the shown object and tags.

The low-level interface

The API generally follows the style set by cl-fluidinfo.

If you want to do non-anonymous access, set the fluidinfo-credentials variable to a cons of user-name and password.

Available functions are:

• fluidinfo-get-user (user-name)
• fluidinfo-get-object (guid)
• fluidinfo-query-objects (query)
• fluidinfo-create-object (&optional about)
• fluidinfo-get-object-tag-value (id tag &optional accept)
• fluidinfo-set-object-tag-value (id tag contents &optional content-type)
• fluidinfo-get-namespace (ns)
• fluidinfo-create-namespace (ns name description)
• fluidinfo-change-namespace (ns new-description)
• fluidinfo-delete-namespace (ns)
• fluidinfo-get-namespace-permissions (namespace action)
• fluidinfo-set-namespace-permissions (namespace action policy exceptions)
• fluidinfo-get-tag-permissions (tag action)
• fluidinfo-set-tag-permissions (tag action policy exceptions)
• fluidinfo-get-tag-value-permissions (tag action)
• fluidinfo-set-tag-value-permissions (tag action policy exceptions)
• fluidinfo-get-policy (user-name category action)
• fluidinfo-set-policy (user-name category action policy exceptions)
• fluidinfo-create-tag (ns name description indexed)
• fluidinfo-get-tag (ns tag)
• fluidinfo-change-tag (ns tag new-description)
• fluidinfo-delete-tag (ns tag-description)

Helper functions are:

• fluidinfo-make-permission-object (policy exceptions)

Installation

Place the fluidinfo.el and fluidinfointerface.el files somewhere in your load-path.

Then modify your .emacs.el (or whatever init file you use) to contain either

(require 'fluidinfointerface)

or more lazily: (autoload 'fluidinfo-browse-user "fluidinfointerface.el" "Browse a specific user in the Fluidinfo" t) (autoload 'fluidinfo-browse-namespace "fluidinfointerface.el" "Browse a specific namespace in the Fluidinfo" t) (autoload 'fluidinfo-browse-tag "fluidinfointerface.el" "Browse a specific tag in the Fluidinfo" t) (autoload 'fluidinfo-browse-query "fluidinfointerface.el" "Do a query against Fluidinfo and show the results" t) (autoload 'fluidinfo-browse-object "fluidinfointerface.el" "Browse a specific object in the Fluidinfo" t)