the future of GNOME Applets



Hey all,

Been thinking a lot lately about the applets in GNOME. Some of them are
seriously underloved. Going through the list:

Battery Charge Monitor
	Needs a rewrite to use HAL, waiting for HAL to support
	batteries. Keep.

CD Player
	Haven't looked at this, suspect it will want integration
	with Sound Juicer. It's possible that this should instead
	be replaced by some applet that links with a media player
	(when we include a media player in GNOME). Keep, for now.

Character Palette
	Keep. Wish we had a new icon though.

Clock
	Keep

Command Line
	Keep

CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor
	We need to add one of these. There are a number of options here
	personally, I want to get one that uses HAL, however HAL doesn't
	currently have Processor devices either.

Dictionary Lookup
	Keep

Disk Mounter
	This applet looks ugly, has a confusing interface and looks like
	a bad GNOME2 port of a GNOME1 applet. Completely unmaintained.
	Almost everything it does has been replaced by g-v-m or
	computer://. Plus it doesn't work on Solaris. It would have to
	be completely rewritten to use gnome-volume-manager, although
	I'm not sure how useful it would be. I propose stopping it from
	compiling by default but not removing the code.

Fish
	Keep

Geyes
	Keep

Inbox Monitor
	People use this (I think). Personally I think it should be
	turned off by default when it can be replaced by an Evolution
	notification icon. Keep for now.

Keyboard Accessibility Status
	Keep

Keyboard Indicator
	Keep, though the icon could do with some loving, I think someone
	did one in fact.

Modem Lights
	I'm sure this could be replaced by Network Monitor in the
	future. What do people think should happen with this one?

Notification Area
	Keep

Sticky Notes
	Keep

Stock Ticker
	Keep, but needs some code loving.

System Monitor
	Keep

Trash Applet
	Latest Addition

Volume Applet
	Recently rewritten

Weather Report
	Keep

Window List
	Keep

Window Selector
	Keep

Wireless Link Monitor
	This has been completely superseeded by gnome-netstatus, plus
	hopefully gnome-netstatus is going to get some serious HAL lovin
	in the near future making it even more useful. FC is turning off
	this applet in their packages, I would like to turn it off by
	default here too.

Workspace Switcher
	Keep

I also want to add Ross Burton's contact lookup applet (when he's
ready).

What do people think of these plans? It has been commented there are too
many applets currently. However the applets are one of the most used
parts of the desktop. We don't want to ship second rate applets, but I
really want other people's opinions.

--d

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http://davyd.ucc.asn.au/
 
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