Network Neighborhood Crazyness Idea

[Patrick.Mevzek at bde.espci.fr]

Just an idea...

We all know that NN under Windows is at best non predictable and totally
impossible to use since many times machines are not showing themselves and so
on....

We all know also that Samba is never the problem with that, it's just the M$
protocol.

So my idea: if some clever Window$ programmer makes an app that is just doing
the same:
You launch the app you have the list of computers
You click on one you have a list of shares, and so on...

Of course the application will behave itself a little better than NN, because
it should be designed with that aim in mind, with the help of Samba
people/docs/past experiences.

Then you remove the NN icon (easy with System Profiles) from the desktop and put
an Icon for this new app (maybe even the same icon ;-) !).

You loose a little (like when using NN directly inside applications - not
really needed if you map shares to drives at netlogon) but you gain more
stability and logic.

What do you think ? Maybe it exists already ? (I know that cgi progs exists to
have NN in a Web page, but my aim is more to totally replace M$ idea of Network
Neighborhood)

It would even be possible to restrict view (like only local network, or only
some computers) or things like that, everything in a logical point of view.

I'm not a Window$ programmer, so it is impossible for me to do it, but I can
help in other ways maybe. Just let me know. With some docs and some people
pointing me in right direction, and some time, I might even consider to start it
myself.

Patrick Mevzek
pat at patoche.org

PS: you can even think of something launched at startup and then running like a
service also which warns you (popup a window or something) when it detects a
machine joined the network, disappeared and so on.... that could be handy for
debugging, especially with new Samba code with NT functionnality.
You could also have this information with timestamp stored in a file, etc...
This should be among other configurable options of course.