Proposal: New module "kdecore"

[David Faure]

On Wed, Apr 19, 2006 at 02:27:15PM +0200, Thiago Macieira wrote:
> David Faure wrote:
> >> For the sake of the argument, let me propose a complete radical
> >> approach:
> >>
> >> a) Move kdebase-corepps to kdelibs
> >
> >This makes kdelibs huge. I often wish it was smaller, not bigger ;)
> 
> Only if you don't take step (b) and move the non-central libraries out of 
> kdelibs. Besides, aren't all of those apps small ones? The largest in 
> your list was khelpcenter, I think.
Yes.

> >I think dnssd is supposed to be part of kio -> can't move out
> 
> I don't see why. kio_zeroconf is in kdenetwork. Service discovery has 
> nothing to do with KIO. Service publishing is even more restricted, since 
> it makes sense for only a few apps.
OK, I'll take your word for that one.

> >kwallet is used by khtml and kio (kpasswdserver) -> can't move out
> >kspell2/sonnet is needed by KTextEdit and khtml -> can't move out
> >kutils currently has find/replace stuff, used by khtml -> can't move
> > out. (we could merge thart part of kutils into kdeui once kio and
> > kparts are there too, anyway ;)
> 
> KHTML is a big question mark on where it should be. Being strict in the 
> definition, it isn't a core library, so it would be moved out to 
> kdeapplibs. Which, in turn, makes kdebase depend on kdeapplibs.

KHelpcenter uses KHTML! If khelpcenter moves to kdelibs, khtml stays in kdelibs.

> >knewstuff was the good example - it's not used inside kdelibs itself
> > AFAIK. But the knewstuff developers will tell you that all KDE apps
> > should use it, so there isn't any point in moving it to "kdeapplibs" or
> > whatever;
> 
> Like downloading new skins for kcalc? New bugs report templates for 
> KBugBuster?
Sure :-)
OK those were small apps, but still, many apps have themes or templates or
sounds or downloadable stuff.

> I'm trying to draw the line between libraries used by few or many 
> applications and libraries used by all or almost all applications.
Right.

> The central question here, I think, is: should we have to force users to 
> have a KDE Control Center even if they just want to run Kate or Konqueror 
> in TWM?
Honestly I don't see a big problem with that, other than the inconsistent integration
you point out below. If I want to set the language or widget style of my kde apps
in TWM or Windows or Mac OS X, I launch the KDE control center. Simple solution.

> In the list I posted, there were many KDE-wide settings. If you run only 
> KDE applications, they are global settings. But if you don't, you get 
> inconsistencies.
> 
> Example: you can change in KDE what the shortcuts for Undo, Cut, Copy, 
> Paste are, in all applications. Sorry, in all KDE applications: 
> OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Gimp, etc., aren't changed. So you end up with 
> an inconsistent environment, where Ctrl+C copies in some programs but not 
> in all, and your change doesn't apply to all the programs you use.
> 
> Unfortunately, there's no around it: if we allow users to customise 
> certain things, it will always only apply to KDE applications. The 
> alternative would be to disallow customisation if we can't make others 
> comply (lowest common denominator).
> 
> But I digress...

Yes, that's the way things work right now; I'm for solving one problem at
a time, and reorganizing kdebase means moving the existing code, not changing
the way things work :)

--
David Faure
faure at kde.org