How to get to Xfce 4.4

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Brian J. Tarricone schreef:
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> Damn you, Jasper.  I get up late, and tell myself I'm going to get my
> ass out to the convention center, and then you send this really long
> email that I really have to read and reply to ^_~.
> 

I thought you enjoyed those kind of things ;-)

> On 1/8/2006 3:23 AM, Jasper Huijsmans wrote:
> 
>> * 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.
> 
> This would be nice, but I think the most we can do is deprecate stuff in
> our libraries that have gtk 2.6+ equivalents, and then
> search-and-replace in the apps to use gtk instead.  (Though that may be
> what you were talking about.)

Yeah, that would be the best option.

> 
>> * 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.
> 
> Definitely post-4.4.
> 
>> * 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.
> 
> Ditto.

Ok, let's forget about those for now. I probably should put them in 
bugzilla...

> 
>> 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?).
> 
> I'd rather keep mailwatch out of the core for selfish reasons, but
> realistically, it doesn't need many changes and there should be no
> problem with tying it to Xfce's release schedule.  I've been meaning to
> make some real releases, and it might be a good idea for me to do this
> before we start freezing for 4.4 to knock some bugs out.
> 

A mail checker has always been part of the default panel. I'd like to 
have it available in a default 4.4 release as well.

>> * 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.
> 
> I actually did something similar to this for xfdesktop only.  It's a bit
> rough around the edges and I might remove it for 4.4.  Has anyone looked
> at this?  It's in the desktop settings panel.

Aha, I didn't know. Hmm, I don't see it, maybe I need to update...

> 
>> * 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.
> 
> Put it off.  No one has time for this, and no matter how "fairly easy"
> we think it is, it really never is.
> 

Damn, you're turning into a realist ;-)

>> * 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.
> 
> Nope, it's fine.  Menu generation (after the cache is built, anyway) is
> negligible, and it's not that significant anymore even without a cache.
>  The real bottleneck is backdrop handling.

Ok. Would it help to first load a solid color (say, black) and load the 
image in an idle handler?

> 
>> * 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.
> 
> Are you planning on at least putting a stub MCS plugin in to handle
> running the panel prefs from the settings manager?  It's notably missing.
> 

Ah, yeah, I forgot. That would of course be easy enough to add.

[...]
> 
> No, they don't need to release at the same time, but it might be nice
> for marketing reasons to try to release them all with 4.4.0.  I *think*
> I can have an xfmedia release I'm comfortable calling 1.0 in time for
> 4.4.0 if I work my ass off.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> I'd be interested in this, but I feel like I'd be overcommitting myself.

Same here, but I just don't have the time :(

	Jasper