new panel

[Nick Schermer]

2009/7/26 Brian J. Tarricone <brian at tarricone.org>:
> Hey Nick,
>
> Finally got around to installing the new panel from git.  Looks pretty cool.
>  A couple weird problems though:
>
> 1.  I started it the first time, and I got an empty panel.  Ok, cool.  I
> killed it with ctrl+c from the terminal I started it in, and then restarted
> it.  Uh-oh, no panel at all now.  So I run "xfce4-panel -p" to get the prefs
> dialog, and it shows "Panel 1", but there's still no panel on the screen.  I
> add a new panel and that shows up, with a red-dashed outline on it.  But no
> Panel 1, even if I switch back.

That that part is not really finished. It should install the default
config at that point, but I haven't really figured out to do that in a
good way with xfconf.

> 2.  Whenever I add something to the panel I get this on console:
>
> (xfce4-panel:18042): libxfce4panel-CRITICAL **:
> xfce_panel_plugin_get_unique_id: assertion `XFCE_PANEL_PLUGIN_CONSTRUCTED
> (plugin)' failed
>
> Is that a problem?

Yeah it means a plugin called that function before the plugin was full
constructed from the panel's side. I should fix that.

> 3.  You appear to have incompatibly changed the API of libxfce4panel. That's
> fine, but it would be nice if you'd change the library name
> (libxfce4panel-1.0.pc -> libxfce4panel-2.0.pc; libxfce4panel.so ->
> libxfce4panel-2.0.so; $(includedir)/xfce4/libxfce4panel-1.0 ->
> $(includedir)/xfce4/libxfce4panel-2.0) as well so they're installable in
> parallel.  (I have to install it to a new prefix now because none of the
> other xfce stuff with panel plugins will compile against it.)

Yeah I should do that, I guess. The ABI changed, but the API should be
compatible (still some missing pieces, I know) so I have to make sure
the plugins are compiled against the new panel, that's all it needs.
Personally i was thinking (when the last remaining api things are
done) is doing a verinfo bump, but leave the library name the same.

> 4.  Launcher plugin doesn't allow adding arbitrary commands, only apps that
> have .desktop files.  Is that intentional?

Not finished yet.

> 5.  A little usability note for the prefs dialog.  Using "Size" and "Length"
> might be a little confusing.  It would be better to just use "Height" and
> "Width" and swap their positions (and px vs. % meaning) when the orientation
> of the panel is changed.

Duno, maybe you have to get used to it ;-).

> Otherwise it looks pretty cool!  I love how there's a list of active plugins
> in the prefs pane, and how you can manipulate it there.  The extra "Xfce
> Panel" submenu on panel item context menus is really useful and long
> overdue.

I was thinking about getting rid of the menu when everything is done
^_^, only there to help me quickly restart the panel during
programming. Anyway there is still a long list of remaining items to
do before the panel is in shape for trunk/master. The good thing is is
that the code in the git branch is easy to understand and quite stable
already (most of the bugs you hit are dead-ends because of unfinished
code).

Nick