Goals for next Xfce releases

[Nick Schermer]

> Consolidate Platform
> ====================
>
> - Cleanup and merge libraries:

I already have a new lib named libxfce4netk op my lappy. It runs quite
well and with some visibility tweaking I got the .data size of the
library around 2344 (for comparison, libwnck has a .data size of
4236).

>   Is there any package that wants to depend on libutil alone? I can't
>   really think of any. In that case we could decide to have only one
>   xfce-libs package. Maybe mcs should be separate?

If Benny wants to ship Thunar 'outside' Xfce we should (and probably
will) keep util separate and mcs must die! But personally I'm a
proponent for putting the libs in 1 package...

> - Settings daemon. No gui, use D-Bus to get/set values and listen for
>   changes. Dialogs are started from .desktop files. This will make it easier
>   to combine the interface for settings from different packages
>   (keyboard shortcuts for instance), if we want that.
>   Needs to depend on X for xsettings :( Or should that be separate?
>
>   Or maybe we should just use GConf? It still depends on CORBA, I guess...

Orbit (?)

>
> - New infrastructure?
>   - There is a notification daemon, are there programs that would like
>     to depend on this?

I ported this daemon so I could see when my laptop was connected to a
wireless network and because I knew Benny was more or less against the
notification ideas, it run for more then half a year on my laptop
without anybody knew about it. Eventually it ended in the goodies repo
(and I keep it in sync with the Gnome version), so we might use it
here and there (Orage for example), but keep it professional ^_^.

> Window manager
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> For me xfwm4 does everything I want it to, so I've no ideas for 4.6.

Maybe take a look at the new xorg stuff? Libxcb and use the render
backend (I don't mean xfwm should be another compiz/berl, but maybe we
can benefit from their opengl speed? <-- /me is not an expert here).

> - Separate desktop files for launcher items. Someone mentioned this
>   recently, I think it was benny. I'm not convinced this is necessary.
>   We already use the same structure (Name,Icon,Exec,etc...), but the
>   launcher items are not stand-alone programs, they are programs +
>   options, so we can have 10 terminals with different arguments. Why
>   would we want separate files for that?

I think launchers from desktops file are useful, especially when we're
going to use the frapmenu stuff. But I would vote for a new plugin,
based on Jannis' menu api, and keep the old launcher around, because
it quite powerful (and I already did a rewrite of it ^_^).

> - Rewrite tasklist widget. Someone posted some interesting mockups that
>   we could try to implement. Proper operation in vertical mode would be
>   nice as well.

This needs some more brain time before we can even start thinking
about writing source code. The mockups look great, but I have my
doubts about some of the features...

> - Printing. I never use it, so I have no complaints ;-)

I never use a printer, but what's the difference between xfprint and
the print backend in gtk 2.10?

> - Terminal. I can't think of anything that is missing, but I'm sure some
>   people can...

I did some work on full terminal dnd (drag tabs between terminals and
detach with drag/drop outside the window. Most of this works, but
there are a couple of problems, so I'll take a look at this later.

Another question I'd like to get answered: Can Xfce 4.6 depend on gtk
2.10? There are a lot of interesting features in the gtk 2.10 release,
but I hate all the #ifdef code... Benny also proposed this for Thunar
and Terminal, so maybe we can get this sorted out...

Greets,
Nick

@Japer: have a nice holiday!