Why not reusing more GNOME components?

[Sébastien Wilmet]

On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 12:43:49AM +0100, Alistair Buxton wrote:
> On 29 August 2014 14:34, Sébastien Wilmet <swilmet at gnome.org> wrote:
> > That's what I do. I install the Fedora Xfce spin, and install GNOME
> > apps. What I want is to install Fedora with GNOME, and replace
> > gnome-shell with xfce4-panel. I'll try this latter solution, to see if
> > it is possible. I see that xfce4-panel depends on exo, xfconf,
> > libxfce4ui, garcon and libxfce4util. So it's maybe possible to use it
> > out of the whole Xfce desktop.
> 
> This already works, and if it doesn't it is a bug. You will need to
> replace the window manager too, as gnome-shell does that as well as
> provide panels. You will also need something to render the desktop
> background as gnome-shell took over that responsibility from nautilus.
> If you choose Xfwm and Xfdesktop, you will basically have the full
> Xfce desktop installed. You could however use metacity and xsetroot if
> you prefer. This is the main difference between Xfce and GNOME: Xfce
> is still modular. GNOME is now gnome-shell, take it or leave it.

It mostly works. But the desktop settings are not well integrated. For
example if I want to change the desktop background I need the Xfce
settings, for some other settings I need gnome-control-center. If I try
to change the desktop background in gnome-control-center, it doesn't
work.

(I have another minor issue, the icons are not displayed in the
application menu).

So it requires some development work to have a good integration.

--
Sébastien