How to get to Xfce 4.4

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Hi all,

So, here we are, it's 2006 and we need to start getting serious about 
releasing Xfce 4.4 if we want to do the release in February.

Warning: this is a very long email!

Let me try to list a few things that need to be done or that I would 
like to see. A few different areas can be distinguished: code, 
translations, documentation, website and xfce subprojects.


Code
====

Libraries

* They work, but it would not be a bad idea if someone were to go over 
them and see if we can clean things up a bit, now that we can depend on 
gtk 2.6.

* One thing that might be a good candidate to put in the libraries is 
the menu spec handling. Currently xfdesktop uses different code from 
xfce4-appfinder. Probably after 4.4, unless someone volunteers to do the 
work.

* Similarly, the icon theme handling should be changed to use 
GtkIconTheme instead of our own implementation. This is not trivial and 
is probably something for after 4.4.

Desktop

For me this includes xfce4-session, xfce-mcs-manager/plugin, xfce-utils, 
xfwm4, xfdesktop, xfce4-panel, xfprint, xfce4-mixer, xfce4-appfinder and 
I think xfce4-mailwatch-plugin (Brian, what is your opinion?).

* It would be great if the session manager could have a special dialog 
for starting/stopping Xfce components, at least xfwm4, xfdesktop and 
xfce4-panel. Again, this require someone to do the work. I'm not sure 
how hard it would be.

* The display mcs plugin needs a 'Default' option that does nothing to 
solve problems with remote displays and FreeNX. This should be fairly 
easy and I might do this myself.

* Some people have complained about the speed of xfrun and suggested the 
use of gmrun (I think). We should check if we can't simply use gmrun 
code. Needs someone to do the work; should be fairly easy.

* Xfwm4 is just awesome, no need for changes ;-) Anyway, Olivier is a 
better judge of what needs to be done still.

* Brian said xfdesktop was slow to startup because of the menu 
generation. Maybe that can still be improved before 4.4? Other than 
that, it seems to work fine.

* The panel is now feature-complete, I believe. What it needs now is 
testing in as many situations as possible, especially multi-screen 
setups. There are a number of problems in that area i am aware of and 
will try to fix as soon as possible.

* Another thing to look at is which plugins should be included with the 
panel. Someone suggested to add the show-desktop plugin and I think 
maybe the windowlist plugin. Then we will have all window management 
plugins as part of the panel.

* The panel will need a new default configuration before 4.4, which 
could require some translations as well. This is one of the last things 
to decide though.

* The trigger launcher and xfce4-eyes-plugin should be moved to the 
goodies project, IMO.

* I don't now if xfprint and xfce4-appfinder need any work. Danny is 
busy porting xfce4-mixer to the new panel framework. The mailwatch 
plugin seems to work very well.

Applications

* There are a number of application that should release along with the 
desktop. Definitely that includes Orage, xffm and hopefully thunar.

* Other possibilities are xfmedia, mousepad and xfburn, but they don't 
necessarily have to be released at the same time as the desktop.

All

* I think what we need most is people checking out SVN and report 
problems. It needs to work in as many situations as possible.


Translations
============

It is always difficult to say when is the best time to start translating 
new code. We are at the start of a testing period (I hope ;-) and this 
may show problem in the interface that require string changes.

On the other hand, the modules should be more or less feature complete 
now and there are a lot of strings to translate, so it might be a good 
idea to start translating now.

At least developers should probably start notifying xfce-i18n of string 
changes.


Documentation
=============

Oh dear. Traditionally I have been very involved with the documentation, 
together with Francois. However, Francois is extremely busy with real 
life and I just started a new job, so I don't know how much time I will 
have.

The panel needs completely new documentation and also the window manager 
has changed quite a bit because shortcut handling is now in a separate 
mcs plugin.

If no-one volunteers to help, I will do the panel documentation myself, 
but I don't think I will have the time and energy to do other 
documentation.

Ideas about how to make it easier for people to help out with 
documentation (using a wiki, maybe?) are very welcome.


Website
=======

Xfce has grown from being a desktop project with a single website to 
being a platform with many sister projects: goodies, i18n, installers, 
thunar, xfmedia, mousepad, xffm, ... It would be very nice to have some 
consistency between all the related web sites.

The Xfce website could perhaps do with a little freshening up to better 
help our users find what they need.

I have been playing a little with php and css to see if it would be 
possible to recreate the Xfce site layout with only css and in a 
slightly more maintainable way. Check the result at 
http://www.loculus.nl/xfce/new.xfce.org/ . It is missing most of the 
content, only 'Home' and 'About' have some ;-) I have tried to reduce to 
number of toplevel links to make things a little easier to find.

As an example of what I believe is a well layed-out website take a look 
a www.freebsd.org, especially other pages than the front page: a small 
number of toplevel sections with a side bar  menu for subsections.

It would be nice to have a small team to take care of the maintainance 
of the site, hopefully together with Francois. Someone probably needs to 
have a look at what kind of information we have to show and how this can 
best be presented.


Other Xfce Projects
===================

I'd like to see Xfce develop further towards a small desktop project 
with a number of independent subprojects that provide additional 
functionality. It should be easy to find links to these projects on 
xfce.org.

www.xfce.org
- i18n.xfce.org
- goodies.xfce.org
- xffm.xfce.org
- thunar.xfce.org
- orage.xfce.org    | maybe some smaller applications could better
- mousepad.xfce.org | be part of goodies.xfce.org or even
- xfburn.xfce.org   | applications.xfce.org
- xfmedia.xfce.org
- forum.xfce.org
- wiki.xfce.org
- xfce-look.org
- bugzilla.xfce.org


Ok, now, all of this won't happen without people actually taking time to 
work on it. And this has always been our problem :(


Me
==

Now for me personally things have changed a bit because of the new job. 
I will not have as much time for Xfce and I will need to limit myself to 
the panel and maybe some related library work.

I need someone to manage and coordinate the plugins on the xfce goodies 
project as well as handle the possible move to the xfce server and 
update of the website. I'd like to propose Nicolas Masse for this job, 
if he agrees, and maybe some other active goodies developers to help 
out, like Fabian Nowak and Nick Schermer (or anyone who volunteers).


Maybe it would be nice if all developers would reply to this mail with a 
indication of what they plan to do before 4.4.


Phew! I need a coffee now. Or two.

cheers,
	Jasper

PS
When you reply it might be a good idea to only quote the parts that are 
relevant ;-)

PPS
Sorry for the spam, I hope it will be good for something.