Re: GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.3.0: "Mighty Atom"

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Jeff Waugh">

> The following modules have been proposed for inclusion in the next major
> GNOME release, and have been released with 2.3.0 for testing:

Okay, here are my thoughts on the proposed modules to date.

>   battfink - Energy saving and battery status utility.

I'm not sure what this gives us beyond the capabilities of xscreensaver and
the current battery applet (which I think is easier to read/use anyway). I
guess a notification icon is a good idea, but... Hrm. Not sold on this yet.

If it was included, what would happen to the current applet? Would we
provide smooth session upgrade? Would the applet live on as a separate
module?

>   fontilus - Font management and information tools.

Totally sold on this. Very stable, very sweet. James has done an awesome job
on this. Needs control-center integration, but that's well known.

>   galeon - A GNOME web browser based on Gecko.

Not convinced that Galeon or Epiphany are ready yet. I use Galeon 1.3.x as
my primary browser, but it doesn't feel *quite* as smooth as 1.2.x. There
are also all the difficult maintainership and direction issues to think
about.

>   gcalctool - A full-featured calculator.

A bit gung-ho for me, but I'm sure it would be very welcome on some
desktops. Needs a bit UI love to feel more GNOMEy, but I should file bugs
about those (or suggest stuff in the UI review).

>   gnome-mag - Desktop magnification tool.

There's no way to get to it except from the command line, which just happens
to be very close to inscrutible. When it's going, it works pretty nicely.
Could do with some UI review love. Will be a nice addition!

>   gok - The 'GNOME On-screen Keyboard', an accessibility tool.

No way to get to it except from the command line, doesn't feel very GNOMEy,
is a bit rough around the edges. Sure to improve, and a great feature to
have.

>   gpdf - An xpdf-based PDF viewer.

Are the gpdf/eog/ggv dudes still keen to work on the integrated 'Preview'
like program? I think it would be far more beneficial than Nautilus views.
Anyway, gpdf is pretty cool, though it doesn't seem to use the fonts from
the PDF itself. Renders very quickly and accurately apart from that.

Consideration of this module will hopefully spark some discussion about the
'Preview' app, and the purpose/importance of Nautilus preview views.

>   gucharmap - A full-featured unicode character map tool.

More flexible than our previous charmap. Great stuff. Could do with some UI
review loving.

>   nautilus-cd-burner - Integrated CD burning tool for Nautilus (requires
>     as-yet-unreleased changes to Nautilus for full integration).

I still can't believe this uses mkisofs and cdrecord! Totally cool.

>   themus - Theme management and information tools.

This works pretty well, but I'm not completely sold on why we need it. But
Jonathan (jrb) has some good arguments though. Dunno. It looks pretty. ;-)

>   zenity - Provides graphical prompts and dialogues in shell scripts.

I think that this is of little practical use to the 'greatest common factor'
of GNOME Desktop users. Admins and advanced users can install it if they
want it - a great candidate for geektoys or an admin tools release...

GNOME 2.4 Resource Kit? ;-)

> Other modules, such as gnome-speech, gnopernicus, epiphany and gnome-network
> have been proposed for inclusion, but not released for testing. These may be
> included in a later release.

Yet to see these in action. Need tarball releases. :-)

Thanks,

- Jeff

-- 
GU4DEC: June 16th-18th in Dublin, Ireland             http://www.guadec.org/
 
      "In addition to these ample facilities, there exists a powerful
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