Re: KDE and Gnome shuld be closer.

[Kevin Forge <forge jamweb net>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
> > 3 : Corba : Still pretty much up in the air.  Most people don't even get
> > what
> >       Corba dose completely but from what I grasp it's only used by the
> >       file manager and Panel in Gnome and by the Office suite in KDE.
> >       They both use different implementations though.  At one time they both
> >       used Mico but Gnome has decided Mico has limitations they cannot live
> >       with.  Hopefully the solution they are building will still work
> > together
> >       with the KDE/Mico setup ( I don't know enough about corba to say much
> >       on the likelihood of that ).
> >
> 
> In principle CORBA code is portable across ORBs, as long as you don't use
> ORB-specific extensions. I imagine KDE will have a look at ORBit though,
> once it has C++ bindings.
> 
> CORBA is young in both desktops, I think.

Very.:)
 
> Shared config options are not yet supported. It could be done with CORBA
> too though, or by simple agreement on conventions. I'm not sure themes in
> particular share enough semantics, however.

I only mentioned it so they could get to work implementing it.  In
principle
both sets of config tools are really fruntends to a few text files. 
This 
means that you only need to make the same face have multiple backends
for
it to work on both.  It's a lot of work to implement but as long as both
sets 
of keep it in mind that they may want to do this eventually :)
 
> > 7 : Config files.  What confuses people is not that there is a text file
> > to
> >       edit when you want to get down and dirty.  The confusion comes from
> >       the ~/.*rc files or whatever using vastly different syntax from
> >       one app to the next.
> >
> 
> I don't think either desktop requires text file editing.

It is an option and for fast moving projects like these it often takes a 
while for the config tools to catch up to the apps.
 
> > 8 : Look and Feel.  It doesn't matter so much how each desktop looks.
> > What
> >       is worrying is if the apps use vastly different keystrokes.  I.e.
> >       ctrl+C is as good a cut command as any so lets all use that
> >       ( hypothetical example since ctrl+C is actually used for copy :).
> >       This also ties into the config wish above in that KDE 1.1 ( in CVS )
> >       has a tool for  setting the shortcut keys for most everything.  This
> >       is also configurable in Gnome so how about both tools affecting the
> >       other ?
> >
> 
> Same shared config file problem. Could do this with CORBA; have a "key
> bindings config server" of some kind. Assuming it's possible to set
> bindings above the application level.

The important thing is that it can be done.  As long as it's an elegant 
kludge:)
 
> > 9 : Window Managers.  KDE comes with KWM and has a spec for writing KDE
> >       compliant WMs.  Gnome doesn't care much about what WM you use but it
> >       also has a spec that WMs must fit to reap max benefits.  At my last
> >       count there were 2 KDE WMs and 4 Gnome WMs.  1 of those is BOTH KDE
> >       and Gnome compliant.  Why not move more that way ?
> 
> I don't know what's going on here. If the WM extensions overlap, it would
> make sense to merge them.
> Havoc

Yes it would.  I think each desktop dose things with the WM that the
other
doesn't know about however.