[Deskbar] Another [already] nostalgic happy user

[John Accoun <jsonacc gmail com>]

Hey all.

Just like Addadi, I'm another happy deskbar-applet user that would like to keep using it.

I don't know what the real purpose of this email is besides sharing my opinion, but here it goes anyway...

I've been using gnome for many years and the deskbar applet for maybe 3 years or so. Deskbar applet and tomboy notes are the two pieces of software I use the most on my personal computer.

The recent developments in gnome made me take the decision of changing my desktop environment. The reason why I haven't move to openbox yet is the deskbar applet. There are many launchers out there, personally I like kupfer and gmrun too, but both of them are in my opinion inferior to the deskbar applet, no offense to the good people developing and maintaining them.

I find all this rather sad. Gnome is the result of the hard work of many people, it shines as a light/simple yet powerful/efficient desktop environment and now because of the current eye candy trends that legacy is going to be trashed.

The deskbar applet is the ultimate gnome desktop tool, is where everything comes together. It has simple interface and modus operandi but it is still capable of delivering rather advanced features. On top of that, it's rock a solid application, I never found any bug, any odd behavior, any glitch of any kind.

On ubuntu, and I guess on many other gnome based distros, the deskbar applet relies on heavy and _very advanced_ integration with many other programs in gnome. For example, it relies on tracker index to deliver indexed content very fast.

If I type a word into deskbar it will display all my tomboy notes that contain word in their contents, and if i just press enter it will open the first one in the list. There is no other lauched that comes any close to this. This is only possible because tomboy, deskbar-applet, gnome panel, tracker, and many other open source projects have been developed with integration and openness in mind. If it wouldn't be for all the effort invested developing plugins, plugin systems, dbus interfaces, etc. we would be stuck with the average just-usable (not necessarily efficient) stuff, which is where tomboy alternatives pretty much are.

The usage example I just described is a very particular one, I'm sure there are many other valid ones. My point is: at a first sight, deskbar might look just like an alternative among many, but it's level of integration and other important details put it at at totally different level than it's alternatives.

I guess I will probably use gmrun, but not at all to do everything I do with deskbar applet. It will be helpful with maybe 30% of the things I do with deskbar-applet. Other lauchers would be even less helpful.

I think this project could be perfectly saved and mophed into a stand alone application instead of a panel applet. I am a software developer myself myself, but my knowledge on free desktop technologies is limited. I actually dug a bit into them a while ago and found myself in an unpleasant swamp of undocumented libraries and standards. So I unfortunately I don't have what it takes to maintain this project.

I also noticed that most of the people that maintains software that is tightly integrated with gnome, either works or has worked as a developer of applications for gnome.

For an outsider, this feels like it's some kind of a secret society, and honestly, I myself lack the patience to walk whatever path to get into such circles.

While deskbar has proper documentation for plugin developers, the docs that would provide one the necessary skills to write deskbar applet itself are nowhere to be seen.

Sorry if this was a long email. It may be my farewell to deskbar applet.

To all those who contributed to this great little tool, my sincere gratitude.

So long deskbar applet.