coding/packaging related ideas

[daniele favara]

On 1/9/06, Jani Monoses <jani.monoses at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/9/06, daniele favara <danjele at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Nomed
>
> this is all very nice and comprehensive, thank you!

thanks, so i'll continue editing

> Xfce Menu: I have also thought of setting up the panel/menu as ubuntu does
> with gnome
> They use two panels actually, the top is menu + launchers + systray, while
> the one on the bottom
> is the taskbar + show-desktop icon + trash IIRC. Since the 4.4 panel can run
> multiple instances I think
> we could have a similar setup. Taskbar inside main panel clutters too much
> IMHO.

Well, i think it depends on how many launchers you think to include in
the panel.
I think it's better to remove all the redundancies, for ex. if a
"system menu" could be included then xfce-setting-show could go there,
as printer apps and so on.
Anyway if multiple instances are allowed that would be perfect, in my opinion.

>
> The system menu definitely needs a reorganization it has way too many items
> especially the settings submenu.

i totally agree, especially for xfce settings stuff (see NoDisplay=true)

If i could have the "final" list of the applications that could go in
system menu i could start organising a table that could show how it
could look like, and then people could make their purposes.

> We should go towards a simple setup again looking at what the gnome camp
> does but not exagerrating ;)
> Having a Places menu would be great too. We need to see if maybe a new type
> of panel plugin can be written
> which would just call thunar on various items in that menu.

I'm sorry but i don't get what you mean with "Places menu" :/ ...

> Artwork:
> it makes sense having the gdm artwork in the artwork package, but I put it
> in settings because we'll likely
> have to override /etc/gdm stuff to and so we don't have two places for gdm
> stuff. But I am also thinking of just
> merging artwork in the settings package, that's what kubuntu has too.

yes, i was thinking how you could overwrite some configurations, but
I've even seen that ubuntu suggests *buntu-artwork package.

Anyway i think the xubuntu settings package could have as dependencie
xubuntu-artwork, but to move gdm to xubuntu-artwork shouldn't be a
problem or it is ?

with xubuntu-artwork i get xubuntu themes for gdm,icons,gtk ... and
with xubuntu settings packages i set those theme as default.

> You ask 'an xfce-xubuntu splash could be needed'. I thought of this, the
> nice mouse in the ubuntu wheel animation
> is the perfect splash for xubuntu ;). But I also noticed that when splash
> screens are enabled startup is slower.
> I'd rather see if we can make the desktop start faster some way than using
> splashes. However if the latter is the case
> a xubuntu specific one would be preferable to the defaults.

well, i was thinking that to have an homogeneous desktop xubuntu could
use its own logo, I've taken a look on the source of xfce splash ..
and it should not be that hard to customize it.

> esetroot vs xfdesktop. I have not used esetroot so I cannot comment. What
> would be the advantages? I also assume you mean we still keep xfdekstop for
> the system menu right?

maybe i love esetroot because i don't really like xfdesktop4, and the
way it controls the root window.
My idea would be to use esetroot for wallpaper, and split xfdesktop4
to have an xfce-menu package, i wouldn't use xfdesktop.
Anyway maybe the best thing to do here is to figure out how and when
thunar will draw the window root

> Proposed apps:
>
> * monkeyd: a httpd server is outside the scope of xubuntu-desktop so we'll
> just let people use what they want (apache, boa whatever) especially since
> running a server is not going to be one of the main use cases for xubuntu.

removed :)

> * gnome-ppx: this is again better handled as part of the ubuntu dial up spec
> so gnome benefits too. If it works already it would
> be nice to include it though, I assume there will be more need for dialup
> among xubuntu users than among the ones having more modern hw.

i would see an app for networking that allow to configure:

* dial up
* dhcp
* static ip
* pppoeconf like (as gnome-ppx)

> * emelfm2:
removed :)

> Volume manager (ivman)
>
> I know gentoo starts ivman as an init script, while we so far do it from
> xinitrc. The latter means it runs with user privileges
> but I don't know which approach is better really. Since ivman can be told
> where to look for config files I imaging there can be
> parallel installs of xfce/fluxbox/icewm each using separate ivman
> configurations started by their scripts not from a system central location

Yes i think each Desktop Manager should use its own configuration

> notification icons in the panel(systray) on devices added would be very
> cool. Checking out notification-daemon & co has been on my TODO list, but
> please take a look at it by all means. We may just have to write a similar
> panel plugin as gnome has
> which talks to the daemon through dbus.

If it was possible to use notify-daemon + volume manger, i think it
could be a big step for usability and to make xubuntu more user
friendly.

 <ivm:Match name="hal.block.is_volume" value="false">
	<ivm:Match name="hal.storage.hotpluggable" value="true">
		<ivm:Option name="exec" value="notify.py -s '$hal.info.product$ 
$hal.info.vendor$' -m 'Added $hal.block.device$'" />
                <ivm:Option name="execun" value="notify.py -s
'$hal.info.product$  $hal.info.vendor$' -m 'Removed
$hal.block.device$'" />
                </ivm:Match>
 </ivm:Match>

> mountpoint.py :  it would still be better if ivman got it right so we don't
> use another script in the already too complicated stack
> of detecting new devices and the associated work. It used to work till
> recently so I suspect an ivman/udev/hal misinteraction.

tested on breezy not on dapper:

<ivm:Match name="ivm.mountable" value="true">
 <ivm:Option name="mount" value="true" />
  <ivm:Option name="exec" value="thunar $hal.volume.mount_point$" />
</ivm:Match>

> as for camera I think gtkam or gqview are more appropriate as gthumb is
> gnome app. But thunar also shows image thumbnail
> so it's not a bad idea either. And if the cam is an usb-storage device is
> will just be a 'normal' new volume which thunar handles.
> Printer detection: I think even ubuntu has not this right yet, they are
> working on it.

the application for the camera should let the user to import the
photos, for example i can't mount my camera as a device.  i think
something more then just gqview is needed.

ciao

df


(PS: the wiki page has been updated)