Re: libgswitchit + libkbdraw => ... ?

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Sun, 2006-07-09 at 23:17 +0100, Sergey Udaltsov wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> There was interesting discussion tonight on #g-h, so here I'll give
> some summary and ask an advice:
> 
> As some of you might be aware, libgswitchit and libkbdaw are virtual
> modules included into gnome-control-center and gnome-applets. They
> include some shared code:
> 1. dealing with keyboard configuration in GConf (depends on
> libxklavier and gconf)
> 2. keyboard information DBUS server and client API (depends on
> libxklavier and dbus)
> 3. indicator gtk widget (rather heavy, using #1 and #2 as DBUS
> client). Includes plugins API and plugin management capplet
> 4. keyboard layout display gtk widget, libkbdraw (depends on gtk)
> 
> Usage of this code:
> - gnome-settings-daemon uses #1 and #2 (server)
> - gnome-keyboard-properties uses #1, #4
> - gnome-keyboard-applet uses #3 (and indirectly #1 and #2, DBUS client API)
> 
> Potential usage - any application which would like to use indicator
> widget (for a momen - gnome-screensaver is proposed) will use #3 (and
> #1 and #2, DBUS client API)
> 
> Initially, I proposed to put the stuff into libgnomeui (since there
> are 2 gtk widgets involved). But then Ben Maurer went into the
> conversation and made several substantial notes:
> 
> - libgnomeui is very bloated as such. LIBS=-lgnomeui makes
> applications MUCH heavier.
> - adding dependency on libgnomeui (and any gtk code) to
> gnome-settings-daemon is a very bad thing (g-s-d ideally should be
> headless)
> 
> So, Ben advised to create two small libraries - one for gui-less stuff
> (#1 and #2) and one for gtk widgets (#3 and #4). This would be the
> best solution from the performance POV.
> 
> I see the Ben's point but I have strong concern that solutions like
> this could easily make GNOME any distrobuilder's nightmare.
> 
> So here is the question: would gnome build process stand 2(!!!) new
> TINY(!) libraries - or is there better way to handle this?
> 
> Comments are welcome,
> 
I think it makes sense to not have them as virtual modules anymore, and
put them in some central place. But we have lots of small libraries, so
what about really starting once for all a new library to put this kind
of small libraries into one gnome-desktop-policy library.

Or even, the non-GTK part could be proposed as freedesktop modules? Are
they of any use outside of GNOME?
-- 
Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>