On Fri, 2005-10-21 at 16:38 +0200, Raphael Slinckx wrote: > Hi fellow hackers ! > > Today the following mail was sent to devel-announce-list: [..] > I'll post in the coming minutes a little overview of deskbar-applet, it's real dependencies and soft-dependencies. > I'll list features i can think of. Here is my first draft, please review/complete it, I'm not sending this in that shape ! Maybe if external contributors could also look, see what things can be emphasized from a user point of view, and what kind of good it would bring to gnome 2.14. To put it short: please contribute. Maybe it's better to have it on http://live.gnome.org/DeskbarApplet in that case feel free to copy it there or in some subpage, so we can edit it easily. BIG FIXME: This is a draft, please modify it ! ====================================== Deskbar Applet inclusion in Gnome 2.14 ====================================== Buzzwords-laden Overview ======================== The deskbar is an applet a little like the mini-commander: An entry where you can type queries. While you type, these words are then passed to a list of pluggable backends which produce results, shown in a list. Selecting a result with the keyboard or mouse triggers the associated action. We offer a broad range of builtin backends, see the section Features here under. Deskbar by itself could improve the experience of the alt-f2 dialog and mini-commander, instead of proposing only programs, you could have all the power of the backends at your fingertips. FIXME: Sprinkle some links/screenshots Features ======== Generic: * Sits in the panel waiting for input * Global configurable hotkey to directly focus the entry and start typing * Pluggable backend architecture, allows to add custom backends in home/system dir. Allows third parties to add a backend, ie. tomboy can add a tomboy backend by installing a python script in a specified folder. * Sorting of backend results order is adaptable easily. * Ability to choose a fixed width or to expand in the panel to fill all available room * Intuitive history menu, to repeat frequent actions * Fully i18n-ed * Use themed icons associated with actions, to have a visual feedback Backends: * Simple API for backends implementors, either blocking or non-blocking. * Simple static backends like 'Search xx with yy' where yy can be beagle, gnome-dict, gnome-search-tool,.. * Index .desktop files in english and locale, and allow to launch a program by typing some descriptive words, for example typing 'text' returns gedit, gvim, ... but you can also type 'editeur' in french and get the same results. * Launch command line applications with any arguments: 'killall evolution', 'sitecopy -uo mysite' * Open directories/files by typing a full path, or relative to home dir * Open nautilus bookmarks and computer volumes (with network places) by name * Send mail by typing an email address, open a webpage by typing an address * With evolution-data-server, type an name or address and send mails to your addressbook contacts * With libbeagle, show a small selection of beagle result for typed word * Perform google queries with typed word, and show the results in the list * Browser integration (epiphany, galeon, and mozilla/firefox): index the bookmarks title and url, also index the history, and smart bookmarks/search engines. Planned Features ================ * UI Rework to have a better suited widget than a flat list out of CompletionPopup * Gnomevfs monitoring where applicable: - dynamic handler installation with drag and drop, reload on modification - watch indexed files to detect changes, like new program installation, or new bookmarks * Pkg-config file to allow apps to easily install handlers to system location * Mozilla/Firefox history indexation * When ready, python bindings for galago, allowing integration with gaim contacts * Thunderbird addressbook, similar to evolution support * When framework is complete, support for recently used files * More, hopefully.. Requirements ============ Required dependencies: * Python 2.3 or above * pygtk-2.6 (modules: gtk, gtk.gdk, gtk.glade, gobject) * gnome-python-2.10 (modules: gconf, gnome, gnome.ui, gnomevfs) * gnome-python-extras-2.10 (module: gnomeapplet) * gtk+-2.6 to compile global hotkey and icon entry Optional dependencies: - Compile time: * evolution-data-server-1.2, for libebook-1.2 * beagle-1.1, python bindings for libbeagle, currently shipped, and on their way upstream - Run time: * Running beagle daemon * Running evolution-data-server Of these requirements, only gnome-python-extras is problematic from what i understand, maybe it's a good time to push gnomeapplet into gnome-python proper ?
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