Re: User's preferred search tool

[Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it>]

Il giorno mer, 31/10/2007 alle 12.57 -0400, Matthias Clasen ha scritto:
> On 10/30/07, Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it> wrote:
> >
> 
> Stuffing more and more things into the preferred applications capplet is really
> not the way forward. I'll end up like gnome-volume-manager if we
> continue this...
>
> Really, we need a single search tool that can talk to various engines.

Matthias, this is not the issue I was trying to settle.

Of course the GNOME Desktop needs a new default search tool, that
ideally should talk with the user's preferred engine or the one
available on system (and I hope it will be the best available tool to
search in my data), but I don't think we should lock out any other
alternative.

What if I like Google Search? It's an available solution for Linux/GNOME
desktops, but I don't think we'll never include it as backend for this
future tool.
What if I will dislike that tool and I'll want to use another? Maybe the
new tool will obsolete all others?
OK, I will always able launch my preferred tool from its menu entry
under Application menu, but I'll not able to quickly hit the "Search"
button on my keyboard or choose Places->Search. It's just like the
gnome-main-menu applet that shows the search entry only if you have
beagle (at least the last time I tried)...

And about the growing size of Preferred Application capplet, yes, it's
true, but could be physiological if we like to provide a reasonable
degree of choices to users (by now only 6 applications). It's the only
available place to setup default applications that don't open files.
Maybe we should change the UI using a list on the left, as suggested by
HIG if you have a lot of stuff[1], to choose the section (web browser,
email client...). This could allow to merge this capplet with
gnome-volume-manager[2]>, something like
http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/ but of course with less
steroids.

But this could mean that currently the capplet UI is not well scalable,
not that this is a reason to give up an useful (IMHO) feature.

So, IMHO, "the capplet is a mess" and "we'll have a better tool" (BTW
when?) aren't good reasons to dump this feature. The GNOME Desktop is a
product that distributors, vendors, admins and users should be able to
configure (with a reasonable amount of prefs, of course) and hardcoding
a program (both gnome-panel and gnome-setting-deamon directly launch
gnome-search-tool) isn't a great example for a product adaptable to
customers' requirements ;-)


[1] see figure 6-25 at
http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/controls-notebooks.html

[2] just a note: gnome-volume-manager stores stuff unrelated with
removable stuff. See printers, scanners, and input devices. Really,
what's the reason to run a command when you plug an USB mouse? And, if
any, shouldn't this preference placed in Mouse tool?