WM Tweaks dialog suggestion; moving to goodies [Was: Re: Don't touch keyboard setup]

[Steve Williams]

This explains in part, I think, the lack of interest in the app I compiled a while back. Despite the fact it can in some cases make the code somewhat complex and you find perhaps 5% useful to yourself, I personally am, as are many users, a fan of choices/ options etc. so if you are seriuosly considering adding this feature then you certainly have my uote. It'd be great if it came with a read me file with a few hack instructions too !

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------Original Message------
From: Christian Dywan <christian at twotoasts.de>
To: <xfce4-dev at xfce.org>
Date: Sat, Oct 18, 2008 07:07 PM
Subject: Re: WM Tweaks dialog suggestion; moving to goodies [Was: Re: Don't touch keyboard setup]

Am Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:43:08 +0200
schrieb Stefan Stuhr <xfce4devlist at sstuhr.dk>:

> lør, 18 10 2008 kl. 10:30 +0100, skrev Olivier Fourdan:
> > When I started xfce4 several years ago, my goal was to avoid
> > unnecessary options as much as I could, because it confuses users
> > and makes to code uneedlessly complex.
> > 
> > Over the years we have somehow lost this from sight and added
> > options for anything and everything.
> 
> With xfconf, any application will be able to modify the settings. What
> about moving the Window Manager Tweaks dialog to a separate goodies
> package?

That seems like a drastical approach. Yet I do see the idea behind it.
Considering alone the fact that Window Manager Tweaks is complex enough
to be a separate dialog, it suggests that this is not anymore the set
of configuration the average user presumably would be using.

I currently doubt I could work without that dialog, however at the same
time I recognize merely 5% of what it does as useful to me. Thus first
you should consider what options really are essential and what options
aren't. You could do that by doing a survey, watching questions on irc,
looking through forums on the web. Then finally you might move the
important set of options to the Window Manager Settings.

That said, I consider it a good thing that xfwm4 provides
configurability where alternative window manager, notably metacity,
simply force a particular workflow by removing options.

Moving out the frontend of course doesn't remove the feature, but I
assume that every option inside the interface is used by 5 times as
many people, only because they are aware of its existance and can
easily test what it does. So if you move the Tweaks out of the core,
many users *may* not consider xfwm4 powerful enough anymore.

Yours,
    Christian
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