Re: Introducing NewStuffManager

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2006-10-06 at 13:40 +0200, Sebastian P�erl wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> My name is Sebastian I'm 20 years old and co-author of Deskbar-Applet for
> about 3 months.
> You may have heard
> (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-July/msg00807.html)
> of NewStuffManager from Nigel Tao some time ago.
> 
> So, I'm the guy who's responsible for that project.
> 
> But things have changed:
> We decided on removing NewStuffManager from Deskbar-Applet and create a
> new project. There's still a patch available for Deskbar-Applet to
> integrate NewStuffManager support, though.
> 
> I'm posting this here to encourage you to read my presentation at
> http://www.k-d-w.org/clipboard/NewStuffManager/ and to find out what you
> are expecting from such an application.

I have some comments and questions after reading that
page.  Mind you, I haven't downloaded NewStuffManager
or dug into it.  I'm going off of what you've described
on the web page.

The repository XML files contain human-readable strings,
like the name element.  From the RNG scheme, it doesn't
appear these can be localized using the standard xml:lang
attribute.

The repository XML file doesn't seem to contain any way
of specifying versions of the application for which the
plugin can be used.  Imagine, for instance, the plugin
bar for the application foo.  Version 2 of foo adds some
new hooks for plugins, which version 2 of bar uses.  But
we keep version 1 of bar in the repository for people
still using version 1 of foo.

I see no reason to XMLify existing syntaxes, particularly
those that are easy to parse.  I'm referring to the version
element.  Why not just allow
  <version>3.1.1.0/version>
instead of the more bulky
  <version major="3" minor="1" build="1" revision="0" />
People sometimes do this with dates, and I think it's just
too overbearing.  The syntax for version numbers is already
well understood.

The spec file is data.  You should use a data language like
XML or key (INI-style) files.  Unless there's some really
good reason why people need the full expressive power of
an actual programming language, using one for data files
is inviting trouble.

Is NewStuffManager the best name we can come up with?

And one of my layout pet peeves: In the screenshots, you
have headers (e.g. "Available Extensions").  Below the
header is a big list box with buttons and maybe a note.
The contents underneath are indented.  I know the HIG
recommends indenting groups, but I think it looks silly
when there's only a single group containing primarily
a large control like a list box.  I suppose I should
bring this up more generally on the usability list.

--
Shaun