Objectives for Oneiric - Brainstorming

[Kyle Nitzsche]

On 04/28/2011 11:47 AM, Shaun McCance wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-04-28 at 10:54 -0400, Kyle Nitzsche wrote:
>> On 04/28/2011 10:51 AM, Shaun McCance wrote:
>>> How critical is it that you be able to turn off auto-detection and
>>> just set a static page instead? I could have a GSettings key for
>>> that, if necessary.
>> Very helpful indeed. I have explained why.
> Not really. You've said that you want to support customized
> versions of Ubuntu, but I don't understand what that entails
> or why you think a settings key is the right way to handle it.
I work in the canonical oem group. We do customized versions of ubuntu all the 
time. They range from almost no customization to a lot, including different 
desktops, sometimes with custom default help (translated).  We have in the past 
simply created a new .desktop file for yelp that launches (via ghelp) to display 
the custom help system. Perhaps this will remain an acceptable means of meeting 
this need.

Anyway, Shaun, I very much appreciate your taking the time to consider the 
importance of flexibility and customizability. My emails are an effort to get 
the issues on the table, not an effort to dictate the solution.

> The point of auto-detection is that you can have one version
> of Yelp installed on one computer, and it can do the right
> thing for different users running different desktop sessions.
>
> So let's say when Yelp detect Unity it loads ghelp:ubuntu-help
> by default. Now you create some customization that's based on
> Unity. Yelp sees Unity and defaults to that. Now, presumably,
> your customization involves swapping out pieces and patching
> applications and such. So if you have a separate help document
> for that, why can't you just install it as ghelp:ubuntu-help?
>
> The reason not to do this would be if you anticipate people
> being able to run a stock Unity desktop parallel to the
> customized experience. Then you've got conflicts. But if
> that isn't the case, why not just reuse the help URI?
this wouldn't support both custom help by default and stock ubuntu help, right?
> My concern with a settings key is that it's persistent. It's
> not tied to the session at all.
good point
>   So somebody comes along and
> creates a new desktop environment, the Really Uber Desktop
> Environment ("RUDE"). They decide to use Yelp to show their
> help. Yelp doesn't have auto-detection for RUDE, so they
> have their session startup scripts set a Yelp settings key
>
> /org/gnome/yelp/always-default-uri = "ghelp:rude-help"
>
> A user tries out RUDE. The key gets set. The user goes back
> to using Unity. The key is still set. The user sees the RUDE
> help in Unity. Kind of rude.
>
> You could argue that the RUDE developers are misusing the
> key, but I would argue that we invited them to do so by
> misusing GSettings. If there needs to be an override for
> customized environments (and I'm not convinced there does),
> then I would favor something stateful like an environment
> variable or an XSettings property.
>
> --
> Shaun
>
>