Custom widgets for lxde applications

[PCMan]

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 3:27 AM, Stephen Smally <eco.stefi at fastwebnet.it> wrote:
> Il 24/08/2012 21:05, Julien Lavergne ha scritto:
>
>> Le 08/24/2012 07:37 PM, Stephen Smally a écrit :
>>>
>>>
>>> So my question (and proposal) is: Is a standard lxde widgets library a
>>> good thing?
>>> I personally don't like when a gtk app require another library for
>>> widgets (such as libxfce4ui), because it looks to me like an added
>>> weight. However, i started appreciating this with the granite library
>>> (used for elementary os widgets), and i started thinking about a lxde
>>> library seriously (i called it liblxui, but i don't like the name a lot).
>>> In my plan, the library should be:
>>> * Written with Vala (simple development + C and vala api) and Gtk3
>>> * Themed within Box (or whatever) via css, using another Gtk theme the
>>> widgets won't look strange.
>>> * Lightweight, of course, just few widgets (about 5 or 6), no Services
>>> or patches as in granite
>>
>> IMO, one of the main advantage of LXDE is that it's gtk + glib only,
>> using stock features of those libraries. Starting by introducing a
>> strong dependency on a specific library, and it will end like Xfce or
>> Gnome, an integrated desktop, with a lot of common and specific
>> components. So, what's the point to create yet another integrated
>> desktop ? LXDE will loose one of it main advantages.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Julien Lavergne
>>
>
> Yep, this is the main cons.
> Actually, XFCE apps are bound not only by libxfceui, but also because they
> store information with xfconf, rather than use gsettings or individual
> config files.
> Also liblxui wouldn't probably be used by every lxde app, some of them don't
> need particular widgets (lxpanel for instance). Instead of have same widgets
> reincluded in each app, we have a set of common widgets.
> Let me clarify it with an "equation":
> full project (core + widgets) <=> core project + widgets (liblxui)
>
> If a user want to build its own desktop environment, *he will obviously
> encounter apps which follow different guidelines and are designed
> differently, so the point of liblxui is to have a consistent experience
> across lxde.
>
> Stephen Smally
>
>
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It's not bad to have a common UI library providing basic UI building blocks.
However, don't name it liblxui. That makes people think that it's an LXDE lib.
Name the lib else, please. Soomething like libgtk-ext let people know
that it's a small extension of gtk.
In the beginning of the project, we tried to avoid dependencies.
That's the reason why LXDE exists. I, however, noted some cases where
a common UI widget is required but not provided by GTK+.
For example, a widget showing preview for image file. It's such a
common thing done in every program, but it's just not provided by
gtk+.
Your idea, actually, is why xfce has libexo and libxfce4-ui.
We want to avoid dependencies as much as possible, but if the proposal
make sense and "proven" to be as lightweight as the current solutions,
I'm not particularly against the idea.
Please tell us what will be in the library and what will be its dependencies.
I personally think that it should only depends on gtk+ and has a name
witrhout "lx" or "lxde" in it.
Maybe this is the reason why nowadays we have libgnome-ui, libxfce-ui,
and libexo. Now gnome people killed libgnome-ui and moved its
functionality into gtk directly. We still have them, but it's part of
gtk+ anyways.

Technically having one small lib won't have impact on overall
performance. It's more a political issue than a technical one. People
will think this way, "See? now lxde has as many dependencies as
gnome". It's not reasonable, but it's a real issue. This is what we're
going to avoid.

Thanks.