GNOME3 in oneiric, corresponding transitions

[Sebastien Bacher]

Hi everybody,

Thanks to the work done during natty in the gnome3-team ppa (thanks
Jeremy, Michael, Ricotz, Robert, Rodrigo, and others) and by the Desktop
Team in Oneiric GNOME3 has mostly landed in Ubuntu.
This email gives a summary for the current known issues and transitions.

* Known issues:
- there is no GTK3 theme yet (you can install gnome-theme-standard from
universe to get the upstream theme)
- the user background image is not migrated on upgrade
- there is no indicator-appmenu or scrollbar integration yet for GTK3
- nautilus doesn't display the background by default (you can change it
in dconf-editor org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop icons)


* Components changes:

= gnome-panel =

Since the 2d session on the CD in oneiric will be unity-2d we dropped
some of "default ubuntu experience" patches from gnome-panel and got
back closer from the upstream layout and experience. Note that currently
indicators are not working because they need to be ported to GTK3 (see
transitions below)

= gnome-screensaver =

Upstream did a lot of cleaning in the screensaver code and the current
version doesn't handle "hacks" (the graphics you could select to be
rendered on the locked screen). 
We do plan to bring those back in some way this cycle, see:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-screensaver for
details
The locked screen also has a gnome-shell look, we might want to look at
getting it closed from the unity experience


* Transitions:

= GTK2 to GTK3 =

GNOME3 is using GTK3, we are working on migrating other softwares and we
would like to get GTK2 out of the CD for the lts next cycle.
You can find documentation on how to work to GTK3 on:
http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-migrating-2-to-3.html


= gconf to gsettings (dconf) =

Gconf has been deprecated in favor of gsettings, we would like to get
gconf out of the CD for the LTS as well, you can find porting
documentation on:
http://developer.gnome.org/gio/unstable/ch28.html


= libpanel-applet, bonobo,gtk2 to dbus,gtk3 =

The gnome-panel has been ported to use GTK3 now and dbus, the applets
need to be ported to those technologies to work with the oneiric
version.
You can find instruction on how to port on:
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/AppletsDbusMigration

= libnotify =

the libnotify in oneiric has an abi,api break, basically upstream
deprecated the possibility to position the notification next to widget
or systray icons (notify_notification_(attach_to_widget|
set_geometry_hints() got dropped), the GtkWidget argument from
notify_notification_new() as well.

= static bindings to gobject-introspection =

Static bindings (like pygtk) are deprecated in favor of
gobject-introspection,
see http://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection for details

= dbus-glib to GDbus =

That one is less of a goal than other transitions listed before but if
you do
want to port code from dbus-glib to gdbus see
http://developer.gnome.org/gio/unstable/ch29.html


If anybody has question feel free to respond to this email on contact
the Ubuntu Desktop Team about those

Sebastien Bacher