Clock and Datetime plugin merge

Tue Mar 10 09:11:42 CET 2015

Wrt. colour, I would still find it more logical that people modify their
theme file (and maybe we can provide a UI to help towards that end later),
because that gives a central, unique place to change / reset themes.
Cluttering options across each component can make it kind of annoying to
e.g. change a font system-wide. In any case, you should add a "Use system
default" for any colour/font/size option and enable that by default to
avoid any setup cost for new users :-)

On 10 March 2015 at 04:37, André Miranda <andreldm1989 at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Wow, that was a lot of feedback, I'll answer like in a talk, so notice
> that I changed my mind during the answers :)
>
> On 03/09/2015 04:43 AM, Alex wrote:
>
> I dont know much about these plugins, however I wonder how the package
> "orage" fits in here, which I currently use on xfce ? Does it have any
> features which are not available in "daytime" and "clock" ?
>
> I'm aware of Orage's plugin, but I guess we should address it later.
>
> On 03/09/2015 05:05 AM, Nick Schermer wrote:
>
> I know the color only works with the digital+span format, but are we
> not over engineering [bloat] something stupid as a clock?
>
>  Maybe, the users should decide if this is useful or not(just like the
> splasher).
> So the coloring feature can be postponed for after the merge.
>
>  Bug 9785 is the wrong approach. For some time we tried to fix unneeded
> wake-up events and now we're undoing that? Auke will be pissed ;)
>
>  Another point we should handle after the merge.
>
> On 03/09/2015 05:37 AM, Steve Dodier-Lazaro wrote:
>
>  To me the whole "set your font / font colour" approach seems like "we
> don't read your GTK+ theme properly". I can't think of a time when I needed
> to change my clock font (albeit I'll admit to it being more useful for
> datetime).
>
> Some users are requesting this, but at least in my case is for the sake of
> customization(which is a strength of Xfce).
> I'm using a transparent panel about 30% visible, and depending of the
> wallpaper the clock/datetime is barely readable while everything else is
> ok. I know, I can handle that by tweaking the theme files, but that's
> somewhat laborious and the majority of the users can't do that.
>
>   André, try and get in touch with the Design SIG people for the settings
> UI. I can't work on any FOSS until the 15th but Simon might be able to help?
>
> Ok, I'll try to hang around the IRC during the week.
>
>  Nick, I agree my approach to fixing this bug is quite ugly... The patch
> is available for those who're bothered, though.
>
>  XFPM maintainers, can XFPM reliably (e.g. also on *BSD) inform processes
> that the computer has been resumed? That'd allow getting the information
> through without causing 59 interrupts like my solution?
>
> Currently is there anything being broadcast by DBus when the system
> resumes?
>
> On 03/09/2015 05:38 AM, Simon Steinbeiß wrote:
>
> WRT color I agree with Nick, that's over the top and sucks for themers. For the heavy-duty customizers doing that in the theme is good enough. Same goes for the font to some extent. We can even put instructions on how to achieve that in the wiki.
> With Gtk3 this will be even easier, just put a block like this in your gtk-widgets.css (or even your ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css)
> #xfce4-clock {
>    background-color: #foo;
>    color: #foo;
> }
>
>  You've made your point, but I'm not convinced *yet* that we should drop
> this feature that is easy to use and IMHO doesn't add all that complexity
> to the code.
>
> On 03/09/2015 06:11 AM, Andrzej wrote:
>
> If you want to reduce maintenance burden, drop binary, fuzzy and LCD. They
> are all there only mostly "because we can" and IMHO are just bloat.
>
> I could, but I wouldn't. I'm just planning to bring to clock what datetime
> does that clock doesn't, so we can ditch datetime.
>
> Try the following custom formats:
>
> %a, %d/%m%n<b>%H:%M</b>
> <small>DE: %H:%M (%a)</small>
>
> More details about formatting commands:
>
> https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html
>
> Some features (e.g. font_face) don't seem to work here but overall the
> capabilities are pretty good.
>
> This is very interesting. Now we have something that is easy enough for
> users and brings to table what only datetime does for free. Font family is
> actually working here.
>
> On 03/09/2015 06:39 AM, Harald Judt wrote:
>
> Using custom time/date configurations is where the datetime plugin shines,
> and having a simple calendar is very convenient too. These features are the
> main reasons I prefer this plugin to the built-in panel clock module.
>
> Using the tip provided by Andrzej you can archive the same configurations
> as you do in datetime. Even if the date is presented first and then time or
> vice verse by using '%n'. It's a bit more hacky, but far from hard, I'd say
> that users that might bother to tweak the clock would end up enjoying this
> "programming" :)
> What do you mean by a simple calendar? Clock has exactly the same calendar
> of datetime, I guess it's been a while since you used clock.
>
> On 03/09/2015 08:08 AM, Liquider wrote:
>
>   A simple means to spawn a preferred calendar application when
> double-clicking on a calendar day.
>
> Filling a bug requesting that for clock would be wise :)
>
>
> Phew, that was long. Now I'll try to summarize my current point of view:
> As I was convinced before, clock has more features than datetime and the
> "unique" features of datetime can be accomplished with clock using the
> Pango Markup. Basically almost no change is required to clock in order to
> users migrate from datetime, just a small hack *if* they are using a custom
> format/font. So I guess this is what needs to be done:
> 1. We should come up with a way to let users aware of this Markup in
> clock. Maybe using presets and/or a link to the wiki. The SIG could help us
> here.
> 2. Do a last(final) release of datetime and move it to archives(git and
> bugzilla).
> 3. Move the non-duplicate and valid bugs/feature requests from datetime
> to clock.
> 4. Announce that to users and downstream.
> 5. Am I missing anything?
>
> Few more considerations(bear me, I'm almost at the end of this email):
> - The only missing thing I noticed is that clock's tooltip is not being
> displayed here, could you please check if this is a bug?
> - Some guys were requesting a way to change the text orientation, useful
> for vertical or deskbar mode. The gravity attribute could solve this, but
> it's not working here too.
>
> As it seems no coding is going to be needed for now, if you guys agree
> with my aforementioned "kill the datetime plot", I'd like to know I can
> help somehow.
> That's all guys, forgive me for this lengthy email and for bothering you
> with such a small matter, although this situation of duplicate plugins and
> effort to maintain them has annoyed me for a while.
>
> Cheers,
> André Miranda
>
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-- 
Steve Dodier-Lazaro
PhD Student
University College London
Free Software Developer
OpenPGP : 1B6B1670
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