[project-proposal] xfce4ring

[Brian J. Tarricone]

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Stephan Arts wrote:
> Currently (xfce 4.0 4.2 and 4.4) uses the xfce-mcs-manager for
> configuration purposes.
> 
> Though Xfce 4.4 is still at BETA stage, i would like to start a
> discussion about the development of a possible successor of
> xfce-mcs-manager.
> 
> Thinks i think we should be able to do with it are:
> (Thanks to ElAngelo)
> 
> 1. Support MetaThemes
> 2. Support dnd for theme installation
> 3. Plugin grouping, ordering plugins by group
> 4. Allow writing plugins with scripting-languages like python / ruby / perl.
> 
> 1) - (Complete theme-packages for wm, gtk, icons and perhaps even wallpaper)
> 
> 2) - ( ~/.themes is too complicated for most new users)
> 
> 3) - (this way we can make the GUI less cluttered.)
> 
> 4) - (This probably means we cannot use gmodule for it anymore)

#1 and #2 are totally irrelevant to whether or not we use
xfce-mcs-manager or something else.  These features could easily be
added to the UI settings MCS plugin if someone wanted to take the time
to do it.

#3 could be bolted on to the current MCS manager, as was discussed a few
weeks ago.

#4 could be done by writing bindings for libxfce4mcs, shuffling a few
functions around (moving stuff out of xfce-mcs-manager and into
libxfce4mcs), and writing other-language plugin loaders for the MCS
manager binary.

My point here is not to say that we don't need a new settings manager --
we certainly do -- but the issues you've mentioned are not reason enough
to throw away xfce-mcs-manager, and in fact are doable by extending
xfce-mcs-manager.  (But there are other reasons we should throw it away.)

	-brian

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