Re: Certification for GNOME apps

[Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org>]

On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 12:06 +0200, Danilo Šegan wrote:
> Yesterday at 21:54, Andrew Sobala wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 20:42 +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> >> On Mer, 2005-07-13 at 16:27, Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
> >> > Level 2 - the app is actually written with GTK+.
> >> 
> >> Why does this matter ? Surely it is about degrees of integration and HIG
> >> compliance.
> >
> > I agree. I was similarly surprised by (on the wiki) the requirement to
> > use .glade files as a possibility for one level; surely this
> > certification should be about the user experience, not coding practises.
> 
> It indirectly affects many things.  Gtk+ and Glade using applications
> have a better chance of having consistent user interface AND
> translations.  Maybe it would be Gnome-certified on a lower level, but
> if it's not using stock menu items, and I have no power over managing
> it's translation, I wouldn't certify it as "fully Gnome" since it
> wouldn't fit on the desktop otherwise.
> 
> Of course, there are counter examples such as Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0
> which use Gtk+, yet don't make use of any stock labels and icons if I
> remember correctly.

You still don't need to use glade, though. Sure, it makes life easier,
but it may also involve rewriting your application - using stock menu
items is a GTK feature people can add to their applications (if they're
not doing it already) if they want to do it to become GNOME-certified;
utilising translations is similar. If they have to do a hefty UI
rewrite, they may just ignore the certification standards as being
unachievable - at which point you don't get a cool app integrating with
the GNOME desktop, but a set of certification standards that are being
ignored.

Just my feelings, I could be wrong.
-- 
Andrew