Proposal for a general setup panel (overview)

[edscott wilson garcia]

On Sat, 2002-08-17 at 16:32, Olivier Fourdan wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Back to work after 3 weeks. I didn't work on xfwm4 lately, but I still
> used (some) of my brain.
> 
> I came with a proposal. Here comes the highlights :
> 
> - We standardize on xsettings protocol for all settings (note this
> doesn't include apps data such as xfce4 menus for example)

This is necesary to provide a "feel" of xfce integration.

> - We need to write our own xsetting manager

With object oriented (not c++) modules to make it easier. I've found
that the settings part is needlessly time consuming when developing new
applications.
 
> - A tree view will give access to all option, ordered by applications.

And an extra node for "all applications". Each individual application
will determine which of its caracteristics will also fit here (hopefully
as many as possible). I'm thinking here of not only managing window
position and size, which are a direct concern to the wm, but also the
fonts, background color, and application specific stuff. 

> - It will be modular. Every application that wants to use it will have
> to provide a plugin for the xsetting manager. That plugin will be in
> charge of loading/saving specific settings and display part of the GUI.

We should have a skeleton plugin so that each application can
incorporate its own with ease.

> - to call the GUI, from the application, the application will set a
> specific atom (X11) to an hidden window belonging to the xsetting
> manager and then send a synthetic MapRequest event to that window (using
> XSendEvent). The role of the atom is to provide the specific module to
> display. E.g., xfce4 wants to display its setup panel, more specifically
> the option for the panel position, it will first set the atom
> XFCE_SETTING_MODULE to "apps/xfce4/position" and send an XEvent to a
> given window.
> - If the path to the module to display, the xsetting-manager will
> display a message stating that the module is not installed or not
> implemented.
> 
> What do you think ? 

I think the module should be a dependency for both build and rpm/pkg/deb
install. And  it should fire up whenever it is needed. You should be
able to change a modules characteristics whenever it is needed to. 


saludos,

Edscott