[project-proposal] xfce4ring

[Stephan Arts]

On 4/26/06, Brian J. Tarricone <bjt23 at cornell.edu> wrote:
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> On 4/25/2006 7:09 PM, Aaron wrote:
> > On 4/25/06, Brian J. Tarricone <bjt23 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> 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
> > does anyone know about a good guide or document with the diffrences
> > between gobject and mcs?
>
> MCS and gobject are unrelated.
>
> > i feel like im missing something, but do you really need a manager to
> > force feed the component its new .conf file?
>
> The idea is to have a centralised datastore for the *desktop* to store
> its applications.  At least, that was the point of MCS, though it's been
> abused a bit.
>
> Regardless, we need some sort of daemon to act as an XSETTINGS manager.
>  No way around that.  Whether or not the settings manager (if any)
> should be dual-purpose like that is another issue.

If you want to separate the storage from everything else i that with
further development you mght want to concider not moduling
'everything' inside that daemon. But making that daemon only for
XSETTINGS. and let other apps and scripts handle the rest?

>         -brian

Stephan