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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KSplash/ML donation?
From:       Mosfet <dan.duley () verizon ! net>
Date:       2003-03-08 19:31:01
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Okay, I now subscribed to kde-devel instead of kde-usability since more stuff 
seems to go on here. You don't need to CC anymore :)

On Saturday 08 March 2003 12:18 pm, you wrote:
> On Samstag, 8. März 2003 18:44, Mosfet wrote:
> > Okay, my last email was pretty harsh too ;-)
>
> Ok thank you :-) I was quite shocked when I read that one and thought OMG
> what did I do to him ? :-)
... snip... 

Just a little pissed off because of what I mentioned. np. 

...snip...
> Hm, yes. The thing that we are discussing is just the theme manager but of
> course, the theme designer is the next logical step. Otherwise we'll never
> end up with correct, neatly integrated themes. Regarding styles, I think
> one thing that a theme designer *could* do is just save a list of preferred
> stlyes that match the creator's taste what he thinks matches best to the
> theme. If that theme isn't installed, fall back to another theme and if
> that's not there, a third one as a maximum that a designer could name in
> the theme rc file. If neither is available, don't change it and stick with
> the current one.
...snip...

Don't know about this. If someone is trying to install Liquid I doubt that 
they want to end up with Platinum ;-) 

> The issue with the control modules is more or less that what I mentioned -
> kpersonalizer does already do a good job but it was a PITA to sort out
> everything and to write settings into rc files where I cannot always be
> sure that module xyz didn't change the format and storage location. So
> that's why I think that the dcop functions of the according desktop parts
> should handle setting a theme (most of them do support that already or we
> just restart a certain part like kicker) but most importantly support
> writing a style after checking that it can be applied (i.e. for instance, a
> style is installed -> switch to the style -> success -> save setting
> automatically). That's what's missing in the infrastructure in the first
> place to make applying themes as fool-proof as possible. What do you think
> ?
>

Basically what I think your saying is that a) the application of various theme 
components needs to be encapsulated into some sort of standard API. I don't 
know if DCOP is the answer or doing an actual library is, but I agree either 
way. Theme installers get pretty darn messy otherwise with bits of code 
modifying all sorts of app config files. I'm not too concerned about config 
keys changing, just that it's messy and prone to error.

As for b) I'm interpreting this to mean that you want to be able preview 
configuration changes before actually writing them permanently to a config 
file. I'd go one step further. The theme manager needs to be able to do both 
that and have some mechanism to change the settings of KDE Control Center 
modules before applying. Let's take wallpapers for example. I'd like the user 
to be able to both preview the wallpaper and modify it's settings like 
"tiled, centered, scaled, etc..." before applying. But the only way to get 
the background control center module to run with the new wallpaper set is by 
writing it to the config file first. This wouldn't let you cancel it. I ran 
into this problem with my replacement image part for Konq. It can set images 
as the background wallpaper but I wanted people to be able to configure it 
first. I couldn't get the control module to display the new one without 
applying it to the config file first. No good so I had to include my own.


> > As for CVS accounts, I never asked for one. My plan was to do it myself
> > and submit it for comments and possible inclusion in CVS.
>
> Well, would you take a lead with other volunteers then and start e.g. at
> the dcop functions and sorting that out ? I think that'd be a good start
> for all of us to work together again. Wether you would like to have a CVS
> account or not is surely up to you but as I said, if you'd like to directly
> be more involved to avoid lag times before your stuff is commited by
> someone else, having a CVS account is probably more practical to work
> together.
>
> Ralf
>
> > On Saturday 08 March 2003 11:29 am, Ralf Nolden wrote:
> > > On Samstag, 8. März 2003 15:20, Mosfet wrote:
> > > > Not sure exactly how you expect me to reply to this email...
> > >
> > > I'm sorry if that has been a bit too harsh, it certainly wasn't meant
> > > to be preventing anything. You just have to see that we all had this
> > > unpleasent experience with KDE and you for the KDE 2.2 release IIRC
> > > when you left the project because of those issues that I noted. And you
> > > had a brand new ooh theme manager that was already working and we never
> > > saw even one line of code.
> > >
> > > That resulted in that it prevented people from writing one because they
> > > thought you'd do that. We ended up in the situation where we are now.
> > > Still noone cared about it but the subject comes up again.
> > >
> > > If you want to be part of the community you're very welcome. Everyone
> > > is delighted by your ideas that you share and your commitment to KDE
> > > that never changed despite of you leaving the project and we're
> > > thankful for that IMHO. So, if you want to get your CVS account back
> > > I'd be more than willing to support that.
> > >
> > > We just have to work out *real* plans that result in *real* code which
> > > can be included in the 3.2 release. That's the only thing I'm concerned
> > > about. Nothing more. Please go ahead if you want to come in again, like
> > > I said, I'd be more than willing to support you getting your CVS
> > > account back, but we should be aware on both sides that when you left
> > > it was for reasons. I don't want such a situation to come up again
> > > under any circumstances as it will give us the same bad press if that
> > > will happen.
> > >
> > > If we can agree on real work like we used to do in the early days and
> > > really do the job, fine.  If you don't think you've got the time or the
> > > energy to write a thememanager that is complete, then you could also
> > > serve as a coordinator that just directs people on how to do it the way
> > > you think it should be done, that's also fine.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Ralf
> > >
> > > > On Saturday 08 March 2003 2:21 am, Ralf Nolden wrote:
> > > > ...snip...
> > > >
> > > > > Hi Mosfet et alii,
> > > > >
> > > > > didn't receive anything yet - did that go under somewhere ? Mosfet,
> > > > > I remember that you were working on a thememanager ever since, but
> > > > > one thing that noone ever saw was some working code and design
> > > > > guidelines
> > > > >
> > > > > :-) I wouldn't have a problem if you'd pick up your work at KDE
> > > > > : again
> > > > >
> > > > > and take this thing into your hands with the promise that we don't
> > > > > possibly run into legal issues with mimicing user interfaces and
> > > > > that we aren't forced to decide about adding untested code too
> > > > > shortly before a release
> > > > >
> > > > > :-)
> > > > >
> > > > > Ralf
> > > > >
> > > > > > Regards,
> > > > > > Fredrik

 
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