On Wed, 2007-11-14 at 14:26 -0800, Dylan McCall wrote: > I think bumping functionality to plugins is a pointless operation, > especially in a desktop environment that tries to follow the idea of > having a lot of small programs that each do simple tasks very well. > Interfaces like D-Bus let us create top-level applications (for lack > of a better term in my dictionary) act like plugins by communicating > all sorts of information with applications in an intuitive, generic > way. The coolest thing with that sort of functionality is that there > is a lot of room for standardization, such that programs can > interoperate via D-Bus with other programs that they were not even > intended to work with. *snip* > Frankly, I think the underlying flaw is in Evolution's core design. It > is built to be a very big program, promoting very big plugins; if each > plugin there just did a single thing each, we would have not just > tens, but hundreds of them! > Clearly, the problem of having an enormous core was observed and acted > upon, but the solution just creates a new problem: A lot of plugins, > which feels frighteningly similar to KDE. A smoother course of action, > and one which fits more with the expected behaviour of GNOME software, > would have been (and still would be) to split Evolution into a bunch > of individual programs. Not just sub-programs handled by a miniature > operating system, but actual individual tools; Mail, Calendar, Notes, > etc. *more snippage* I think you've hit on a great point here, and while I don't know much about the logistics and internals of Evolution, I would certainly welcome splitting it into several smaller programs. While a large all-in-one program is better for office environments which use all the functionality, everyone else is less likely to use all of it. For example, the memos and tasks parts of Evolution may be usurped by Tomboy for certain people; other people might want to just use the e-mail functions, and not bother with calendars or tasks. Yet others might want to use Evolution's tasks and memos, but keep their e-mail on Gmail. Another problem I've been thinking about is how Soylent could/should interact with e-d-s as far as contacts go. I can foresee people wanting to use Soylent to manage all their contacts, but use Gmail for their e-mail. Soylent would require e-d-s to be installed though, and they wouldn't want or need it for anything else. This big, monolithic daemon is being installed and run, and they're only using a small part of its functionality. There should be a better way. You could solve this with huge plugins, but as you say, I think we might want to look at splitting Evolution up, and having the components interact via DBus so that no functionality is lost, but instead extra flexibility is gained. I hope that something like this can happen, and while I can't currently have a go at it myself, I'd hope to in the future. Philip > Most importantly, when functionality so significantly unusual that it > couldn't fit in the core of Evolution still wants to work within > Evolution's systems, it would not have to be implemented as a huge > plugin, but as a simple alternative to one of its major components, > easily implemented by adhering to some standards so that it "looks" > the same as the old component (to Evolution's different programs), and > otherwise being a completely normal application visible in the main > menu. > > Bye, > -Dylan McCall > > > On Nov 14, 2007 12:50 PM, Baptiste Mille-Mathias > <baptiste millemathias gmail com> wrote: > On May 17, 2007 5:26 PM, Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote: > > > Moving features to plugins/extensions > > ===================================== > > (thanks to Baptiste for having raised this specific issue) > > > > One of the first thing people are doing with > plugins/extensions is > > moving some of the current features there. It often makes > sense from the > > code point of view, since things will be cleaner. But it > doesn't always > > make sense for the user. > > > > I wanted to bring back to discussion to the list because > originallythe > the thread ended in a discussion about licence, but there was > no > discussion about the UI / usability of plugins in the GNOME > applications. > > I've just open a bug concerning Evolution regarding the way > plugins > are handled. > (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=496839) > > As more and more application comes with their plugin > infrastructure, > it would be nice to have a great solution :) > > Thank you > > -- > Baptiste Mille-Mathias > Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés (merci vuntz) > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list gnome org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list gnome org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
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