[asterisk-dev] Voicemail redisign

[Kristian Kielhofner]

Matt O'Gorman wrote:
> I think you would want just a controlled playback, we want as much as
> possible to be scriptable I would think.  as for the #include that
> was my exact thought, except for the default make it work like call
> parking does and just "work", but for anyone implementing their own
> they would  probably just have an include to the huge dialplan
> script. As for it affecting voicemail.conf, I think some options
> would be removed and it would mostly just be configuration space for
> the users.
> 
> mog

mog,

	I don't know if making it work like call parking would be best...

	I liked the idea of an "apps" folder, with the thought that in the 
future apps could be developed (and migrated) here, then shared by the 
community (after any potential disclaimers and such, obviously).  How 
cool would it be to be able to download some AEL/dialplan snippet, drop 
it in /etc/asterisk/apps, #include it where you want, and go.

	Or, even better...

	What about this (format "inspired" by RPM):

/etc/asterisk/apps/voicemail.app:

; Some kind of format
%DESCRIPTION% Asterisk VoiceMail Application
%OPTIONS% u - play unavailable greeting
%OPTIONS% b - play busy greeting
%REQUIRES% ControlPlayback, VMAuthenticate
%FORMAT% extensions
;%FORMAT: AEL2 ; <-- for ael apps

; Start dialplan code here
[macro-voicemail]
exten => s,1,BlahBlah


	There should then be some res_dialplan_apps or something to load all of 
these and parse the %% headers and load them accordingly.  One could 
then do something like

asterisk-CLI> "show dialplan apps"

	And then get the help, etc, stuff from the header of the various .app 
files in /etc/asterisk/apps, not unlike "show application Voicemail" / 
"show applications" now.

	These various apps would then be loaded automatically (with a reload or 
whatever) and made available to the user.

	Obviously this bares some slight resemblance to AGI, but I think it is 
still worthwhile because:

1) AGI apps are harder to write (to some people) that equivalent 
dialplan code

2) AGI performance issues

and so on

	What do you think?  Is this too "pie in the sky"?

--
Kristian Kielhofner