Re: request to federico

["Dan \"Effugas\" Kaminsky" <effugas best com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Vogt <tom@lemuria.org>
To: gnome-gui-list@gnome.org <gnome-gui-list@gnome.org>
Date: Monday, August 17, 1998 3:07 AM
Subject: request to federico


>one is the question of the scope of the document. most of us agree that
>some of the recent issues aren't part of the scope, but how about a short,
>simple checklist for future issues?


Quick comment:

The TISG was borne out of claims that certain design constructs were out of
the scope of the Application Style Guide because they weren't really
relevant to applications.  I accepted this, and stated that some form of
Total Interface guide would be necessary.  The App guide would be a subset
of the Total Guide, and would cover what we expected app writers to write.
The Total guide would deal with *everything* we considered necessary for the
GNOME interface, be it system level(a good interface should be designed not
to need constant reboots), window manager level(window managers ought to
support gnome panel apps in their dock-equivalent), *true* window manager
level(window managers ought to use the same "launcher list" as GNOME), and
so on.

This split isn't necessarily a wonderful idea at this point of time--it's
probably the job of the implementers to decide what's App level and what's
GNOME-Library level.  But faced with the choice of no total specification v.
a total spec separated from the main body, I offered the latter as a
compromise.

Allow me to reiterate my concern:  Making GNOME a hodge-podge interface spec
that doesn't have a standard well defined core is, in my eyes, an invitation
to failure.  KDE allows only one interface, and GNOME specifies none at the
moment.  These are both untenable solutions.  It is not a statement of
religion to design a standard total interface, unless one refuses to
tolerate others.

>|dan's uisg is still being worked on (dan's announces on freshmeat mention
it,
>but bowie announced different?). a bit of confusion here.


The UISG project appears to be broken down like this...Bowie writes the
guide, as he seems to have the experience do know how to fit things
together.  Bill gathers ideas from all sources.  I generate the next
generation ideas that you(Tom) don't think belong.  When Bowie is ready to
release a version, Bill and I get early access to kick the tires on the
puppy in an intense manner.  Then it goes public, and repeat.