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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: XMLUI rc files
From:       David Faure <david () mandrakesoft ! com>
Date:       2000-05-17 8:57:39
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On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 03:37:54PM +0200, Stefan Taferner wrote:
> On Tue, 16 May 2000, David Faure wrote:
> > It's getting hard to make changes to the application's rc file:
> > if the user changed _anything_ (including simply the icon size)
> > then a full copy is saved locally and when the application evolves,
> > it screws up everything (renamed or deleted entries disappear from
> > the UI, but new ones never appear). The major problem is that, as
> > opposed to KConfig, we save a FULL copy for any change - but
> > I see no way around that.
> >
> > I think Simon was right: we should remove (or backup at least)
> > local rc files as soon as a more recent one is installed globally.
> >
> > At first I thought that doing this on "new release detected" was good
> > enough, but for developers and bleeding-edge users, this is clearly not
> > enough.
> >
> > As a user, when I update an application, I'd rather lose my UI
> > customizations than end up with a completely messed up GUI, sort of
> > intersection between the old one and the new one - that's what happens in
> > fact.
> >
> > Opinions ?
> 
> From a user's point of view I would expect that my changes are merged
> into the new app if possible. As long as the name of the buttons or actions
> has not changed this should work.
I don't see how this could work.

> Deleting the customisations only because a button was added is not
> the right way IMO.
How would the code make the difference between
"button A is missing from local file because user removed it"
and "button A is missing from local file because it didn't exist
at that point" ? If you want the new button to appear, it has to
force that it appears - even if then the user needs to remove it again.

> IMO only the diff should be saved -- however it is done technically.
Sounds nice, but not feasible IMHO.
And it's not the diff, it's more the actions that should be saved, then.
(Button A removed by user -> we don't re-add it, etc.)

Food for thought, for KDE 3.0 ;-)

-- 
David FAURE
david@mandrakesoft.com, faure@kde.org
http://home.clara.net/faure/
KDE, Making The Future of Computing Available Today

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