synaptiks – KDE touchpad management

[Sebastian Wiesner]

On Thursday 25 February 2010 11:07:50 John Layt wrote
> […]
> 
> My one question is how does this compare to kcm_touchpad which the kubuntu
> guys use (http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=113335)?  Which
> is more mature, which has better features, which has a better
> architecture, which has better usability, etc?  Could the projects be
> merged?

synaptiks and kcm_touchpad had different aims in the beginning.  I wrote 
synaptiks as touchpad management tool to automatically switch my touchpad off 
in certain situations, not as touchpad configuration module (personally, I was 
fine with X.org or HAL configuration files for this purpose).  kcm_touchpad 
however wants to provide a configuration module covering all important touchpad 
settings.  

This is reflected by their features.  kcm_touchpad is most likely far ahead of 
synaptiks in terms of touchpad configuration, and provides much more settings.  
On the other hand it apparently still largely lacks the touchpad management 
part.

I have never used kcm_touchpad and can't say much about its usability and 
features.  But I've looked at it sources, because some time ago, I have 
already been asked to merge by code with kcm_touchpad.  

Both projects use completely different programming styles, and have a largely 
different architecture.  Therefore I don't think, that they can easily be 
merged, at least beyond re-using each others user interface.

Personally, from my of course highly biased point of view, I can't say, that I 
like the source code of kcm_touchpad.  If you wish, I can name reasons for 
this attitude, but I'd rather not like to do so.  Being the author of one of 
the discussed applications, I don't think its fair, if I criticized the other 
application's sources without its author being present to respond and to 
defend his work.

-- 
Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.
                                      (Rosa Luxemburg)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-core-devel/attachments/20100225/5ddcb4bc/attachment.sig>