Systemwide adressbar

One of the benefits of a web application is the possibility to have an url to neary every part of it. If you need to access some page very often, you can bookmark it. Or if the web application supports it, you can pass parameters to the page to preset some fields, so you don't have to fill them manually every time. Bugzilla's enter bug page allows this. An other benefit is if someone asks you where to find a specific part of a web application, you can simply send him a link via email.

The idea is why not have such an adressbar in desktop applications?

The benefits would be the same as in web applications.

You could save a bookmark or shortcut to a dialog, you access very often. For example you enter a lot of tasks in Evolution. If the new task dialog is open, the systemwide adressbar shows something like system://evolution/tasks/new.

If you often enter tasks e.g. with the category "personal" you could execute the adress system://evolution/tasks/new?category=personal.

Every application could provide its own namespace system://{application}/ in which it can provide the items it needs.

Such an adressbar should be placed on a systemwide area like a panel in Gnome. The content of the adressbar would be dynamic. The adress of the application that has focus is shown in the adressbar. If the application opens a dialog, the adressbar displays the adress to the dialog. If the user enters some values in form fields, the adressbar showes this values. For example if I'm in Rhythmbox, and click on the artists select box e.g. on "Pink Floyd", the adressbar could look like system://rhythmbox/search?artist=Pink+Floyd. If Rhythmbox is closed an I enter this url in the systemwide adressbar, Rythmbox gets startet and filters on artist "Pink Floyd".

Or you open a lot of graphic files in Inkscape. The adress for the open dialog could be system://inkscape/open. You could also provide a directory or a path to a file with the adress: system://inkscape/open?file=~/graphics/. Of course opening a file directly is possible today, simply via inkscape ~/graphics/file.svg, but this would fit more in the adress schema. You could also print the file like this: system://inkscape/print?file=~/graphics/file.svg&papersize=A4.

Of cause, the passing of parameters does not make sense in every application or dialog. But to have an unique adress for every openable element on a desktop makes sense for every application. For example if you play a lot of Gnome Nibbles and want to treak the settings nearly every time you open it, you could save a shotcut to your desktop, with the adress system://gnome-nibbles/settings.

Or if you want to tell your friend where he can enter his PGP key in Evolution, you could send him the adress system://evolution/settings/accounts/{account name}/security. Probably you could also direct him to the PGP field by system://evolution/settings/accounts/{account name}/security?pgpkey. With this adress Evolution pops up, opens the account settings dialog, selects the security tab and sets the focus on the PGP key field.

The adresses should be the same on every operating system or desktop environment. So for multi platform applications an adress works the same on Gnome, KDE, MacOS and so on.