Unified eBook Search Engine - progress report 1

Well, the name is surely only the project name ;) I have so far only got positive responses from the eBook sellers (hereafter referred to as the "alphas"). I am currently thinking about the API specification, it should be strong, reliable and simple. Strong in the sense that a lot can be achieved with it, reliable in the sense that adding functionality doesn't enforce major changes in the systems using it, and simple in the sense that hooking up new alphas is no more than a matter of registering an input source and search source.

If this goes well, I might also consider creating a stand-alone java command-line program similar to another client program I have written which also utilizes a HTTP driven API (including WebDav). The gain of having such a client program is that people interested in eBooks can easily script their own commands, for example it could look like this


zenon@matrix> ebooksearch --mobipocket Thief of time

fictionwise Thief of Time [Discworld #26]
fictionwise A Thief of Time [Navajo Tribal Police Series #8]
....


or

zenon@matrix> ebooksearch --format mobipocket adobe --title Automata

ebookmall Automata Theory with Modern Applications { Adobe Reader }
ebookmall Finite Automata { Mobipocket }
ebookmall Identification of Cellular Automata { Mobipocket }
mobipocket Finite Automata { Mobipocket }
....


there are so many things one could do with such a tool.

The general contact progress will mainly be posted here.