config daemon/library for 4.6

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 00:24:54 +0200 Christian Dywan wrote:

> Am Sat, 8 Sep 2007 23:29:34 +0200
> schrieb mmassonnet at gmail.com:
> 
> > On Sat, Sep 08, 2007 at 10:45:09PM +0200, Bo Lorentsen wrote:
> >
> > > It could be nice to make a simple Xfconf editor for all settings 
> > > (regedit like thing).
> > 
> > I like the way to open the configuration dialogs in the current
> > version of Xfce.  So maybe we should keep that way, with something
> > that invokes the dialogs through desktop entry files.
> 
> Imho an editor which edits the naked values *sounds* useful
> in case something goes wrong. The problem is that this might result in
> the gconf phenomenon where half of the settings end up in "go edit it
> in xfconf". And if only to prevent that I would rather not want to
> have it. If every plugin and every app behaves properly there must be
> a "reset to defaults" anyway, so we don't have that problem in the
> first place.

Oh, definitely, I agree.  But we already have this problem with Xfce --
a good number of the modules have 'hidden config options', and the way
to set them is different for each app.  Not a particularly ideal
situation.

Regarding user-visible changes, I don't really envision any.  Xfconf
(the system) shouldn't really be seen by users, except for power users
who will now have an easier, more centralised place to go edit any
hidden options that we choosed to add.  The same (or similar)
array-of-buttons settings manager will be available, and the settings
dialogs themselves will all look the same.  Xfconf doesn't prescribe
what kind of GUI elements you have to use (in fact, it doesn't care if
there's a GUI at all).

> > Something like that old thing posted on thunar-dev: oh gosh, on some
> > xfce or thunar mailing-list.  There is somewhere code for a thunar
> > like window with only configuration launchers.  Those dialogs would
> > use the Xfconf client lib, and that's it.  I don't feel the need
> > for a gconf-editor application.  Let that up to GNOME, and who
> > knows, Xfconf and dconf may end up together and it would be useless
> > to have two regedit-likes.

Well, GNOME has gnome-control-center -- they don't expect 'normal
users' to have to open up gconf-editor.

As I said, a gconf-editor-type app for Xfconf could be very useful, and
would make things much easier for power users who like to know about
and tweak our existing hidden options.

> I remember that settings tool, which should basically be an icon view
> which displayed all plugins. I don't think it actually worked.
> 
> I would prefer a settings dialog like we have now, just it would
> display all the things you can see in the applications menu already
> now.

Yup.  Can probably take most of the GUI code in xfce-mcs-manager and
modify it to use xfconf instead.  I'll work on that after I get the
daemon and library more or less 'done'.

	-brian