KSplash/ML donation?

[Ralf Nolden]

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On Freitag, 7. März 2003 05:36, Brian Ledbetter wrote:
> Hello to all of the KDE core developers!  Some of you may remember
> my project, KSplash/ML, from www.kde-look.org.  As you may know,
> the last posted update for that software was quite some time ago,
> and while I have been able to fix some minor problems since that
> release, I have not had the time or energy to put into finishing
> up the 1.0 release.  Rather than having the project laid to waste,
> I would like to donate the entire codebase to the KDE project, to
> (if it is found worthy) be made a part of the KDE core.  Would
> anyone on the list be interested in doing something like this,
> potentially as a "next-generation" version of the original ksplash
> utility (with the new improvements in the ksplash codebase being
> merged into the Classic KSplash/ML module)?  The original source
> code is BSD-licensed, so it could easily be wrapped up under the
> GPL license that the rest of the codebase falls under, provided
> the original copyright is preserved somewhere in the codebase.

Hi Brian,

I'm very much for including ksplashml, because it allows easily changing the 
splash screen for the user and also for distributors who want to brand their 
version of KDE. The overall thing though is that ksplashml needs to be 
embedded in the (long being talked about but never worked on) re-doing of a 
suitable theme manager that can handle:
- - splash screen
- - icons
- - sounds
- - colors
- - background images (desktop, konqueror, kicker)
- - sizing of icons, kicker
- - window decorations
- - even documentation header images

So, I think that the first step should be that there is a group of volunteers 
that finally gathers together to plan such a theme manager from scratch that 
can take the codebase from kpersonalizer and the thememngr plus ksplashml. 
Also what I think is necessary is to add dcop interfaces to all positions 
where things can be themed so the applications themselves like kicker can be 
directly approached. 

The way kpersonalizer does it currently is basically writing directly into the 
rc files of the accoring kcmmodules or programs and then calling a dcop 
interface to restart them (like kicker) or update them (kdesktop). What I 
think of is "set this image as background image" where the programs 
themselves have the logic to actually take the necessary steps - write that 
entry to their rc file and update themselves. That would reduce the 
kpersonalizer code being one example where it would reduce that and it would 
be extremely easy to manipulate the desktop with a theme manager.

Any volunteers ? I'm sure Carsten and I are more than willing to tell you 
where to add what to get the infrastructure in place (dcop functions) and 
we'll adapt kpersonalizer first to match those interfaces along the way while 
other people can rewrite the theme manager to handle eveything.

Of course, that means that also re-using the older KDE 1.x desktop themes (on 
which the theme manager currently is still working) becomes way easier and 
the code for such a theme manager becomes reduced to just the dcop calls 
while reading a theme file.

Carsten is currently working on theming kicker in terms of placement of items, 
size and so forth so we can say, in kpersonalizer for the UNIX theme change 
the layout to a CDE panel, for the Windows mimic to a smaller size and remove 
all icons except those normally found on the windows taskbar, set the clock 
applet etc.

I would very much like to see this very much neglected part of KDE being 
worked on and it shouldn't be too hard that new programmers that joined over 
the last couple of month couldn't handle it.

Ralf
>
> I look forward to hearing your replies.  Thank you so much for
> providing me with 6 years of wonderful desktop experience on my
> FreeBSD desktops!  I absolutely cannot imagine life without KDE,
> and look forward to KDE and Qt becoming a much bigger part of the
> software development industry in the future!
>
> My regards to all of you, those who really do make it happen!
>
> Brian Ledbetter <brian at shadowcom.net>
> http://www.shadowcom.net/Software/ksplash-ml/

- -- 
We're not a company, we just produce better code at less costs.
- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralf Nolden
nolden at kde.org

The K Desktop Environment       The KDevelop Project
http://www.kde.org              http://www.kdevelop.org
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