From kde-core-devel  Thu Nov 04 13:46:33 1999
From: David Faure <David.Faure () cramersystems ! com>
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 13:46:33 +0000
To: kde-core-devel
Subject: RE: KServiceTypeProfile broken?
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=94172328812774

> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, 4 Nov 1999, David Faure wrote:
> 
> > > Indeed. At my university they install and remove software as 
> > > they like.
> > > Sometimes I have gv, sometimes not, then I use ghostview. The idea
> > > of setting numbers was to say: If available I prefere gv, 
> otherwise
> > > ghostview and the rest I really dont like.
> > > 
> > > if you only store the name of the preferred service then you dont
> > > know what to do if this preferred service is not available.
> > > 
> > > I had another szenario. You travel with your notebook from office
> > > to office and you use services installed on the offices 
> network, like
> > > printer services, additional applications etc.
> > > Giving only a preferred service now is a problem since in 
> different
> > > offces you have different services installed. KDE could in 
> > > such a szenario
> > > pick the best apps out of the available ones.
> > 
> > Ahah. Ok, got it.
> > 
> > > If you think that is too complicated for the user, then put the
> > > "one preferred service" in the GUI and set one preference to 1 and
> > > all other ones to 0. No need to remove the flexible approach of
> > > usingt numbers.
> > 
> > Or an intermediate approach : a list with 'move up' and 
> 'move down' buttons.
> > The functionality would be there, but no numbers would appear.
> > 
> > > But the most important point is not to save preferences in the
> > > services or servicetypes .desktop files!
> > 
> > Then there still the issue of :
> > user X installs acroread and kghostview. Before he uses the 'filetypes'
> > program,
> > i.e. there is NO profile for that user, which one do you pick up ??
> > 
> > That's why I thought of a preference value in the service .desktop file,
> > so that when installing an acroread and a kghostview .desktop files,
> > we say as well that kghostview is preferred by default - until the
> > user decides otherwise in this profile.
> 
> No no, please not :-) Do you know the star office decease ?
> They install their KDE .kdelnk files and suddenly all kind of
> mimetypes is associated with StartOffice. Therefore I suggest 
> something
> else: If the user requests a preferred service for some mimetype for
> the first time and there is no preference, then we choose one 
> by random
> and save it as the preferred one. Wether that is the prefect solution
> we can not know, but at least it makes shure that after installing new
> software still the same app pops up as before!
> 
> Usually you have only 1-2 apps for one service installed. Picking the
> correct one by random is very likely. So the dummy user learns
> the one we have chosen by random. Now somebody installes new software
> with a preferred=10 in the services *.desktop. Suddenly the user
> is confronted with new software that he does not know how to use.
> Usually not what it should be like ...
> 
> Bye
> Torben

Do I need to say it ?
You're 100% right, as usual ! :-)
 
--
David Faure
faure@kde.org - KDE developer
david@mandrakesoft.com - Mandrake
david.faure@cramersystems.com - Cramer Systems