some questions regarding KDE vs. GNOME cooperations.

[Mark Hillary]

On Monday 10 Mar 2003 10:04 pm, Kevin Krammer wrote:

> Haven't read about this yet.
> I think that if GConf is superior to the current system technology wise,
> it might be used in KDE4.
> Please also note that KDE4 is not very near future :)

I am not sure I like the idea of win reg style central configuration database. 
Maybe this is just down to my experience of the windows registry

> There is a discussion about alternatives to the current system.
> Also for KDE4.
> My understandig of this is that currently no available system addresses
> all needs and there are very different needs.
> If I understood stw (the aRTs maintainer) correctly, he aims at providing
> a way to make KDE more independ of the actualy sound system used.
> So that it would be possible to not use arts if its capabilities are not
> needed.

Here is an area that merging the two efforts seems 2 make sense. Having the 
same sound subsystem on both desktops allows 3rd Party developers to program 
for a common platform.

> The glib "problem" is IMHO not as big as mails from some people suggest.
> Most KDE developers will only work with a highlevel KDE API and never have
> to use gplib directly.
> glib would only needed if creating new codec plugins and stuff like that,
> which is usually written in C anyways, so using glib can't be a problem
> from those developers.

The problem is having another dependency(unless its one already).

> AFAIK the idea is to reduce the default number of options available in
> control center but to have some kind of "extended config center" for
> people who like to control more details of their environment.
>
> Like tweakUI on Windows, but as a KDE standard tool.

I really hate this idea. Having two programs to configure the desktop is shear 
stupidity and would be deeply confusing to new users. Questions like "Which 
program do I use to configure the icons?" would arrise. As maybe under this 
scheme normal icon setup would be in app1 and setting like animate icons or 
set effects would be in app2 as they are considered advance option.

What is a lot better is to improve the layout of kcontrol, moving options to 
an extra tab, or having a button called advanced options. And having sensible 
defaults. 

TweakUI doesn't confuse things on windows only because its not part of the 
standard windows distribution. A user needs too know what it is or at least 
have an idea before they go and find it.

> The DBus thing seems to be very low level, below the current level of
> desktop environments.
>
> I think it aims at providing a system wide signalling service, much like
> DCOP is a desktop wide system.
>
> The things I have read so far sound very promising.
>
> This would allow to have applications and deskopt environments react on
> system state changes without checking all system themselves.
> Like "CD inserted" or "USB device connected" or "modem connection dropped"

I know nothing about this, but it sounds very intresting. This would make the 
whole system more user friendly

> So far they only merged the two HIG into one document so they can find
> part which are equal or similar.
>
> I don't think any of the two projects will switch to the others HIG
> anytime soon.

Creating a common set of guidelines for UI design is a good idea.

Thanks 
Mark Hillary
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