Control Center items (Was Re: Online Accounts panel for 3.2)

[David Zeuthen <zeuthen gmail com>]

Hi,

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Frederic Peters <fpeters gnome org> wrote:
> David Zeuthen wrote:
>
>> I would imagine Telepathy/Empathy to use GOA to get the Chat accounts
>> that is configured in GOA (in the above example, it would be Google
>> Talk from zeuthen gmail com and Facebook Chat for davidz25). I would
>> use an Empathy specific preferences window (not appearing in
>> gnome-control-center I think) to add e.g. my ICQ account.
>
> Could you elaborate on this, e.g. why would ICQ and other types of
> online accounts be deported to a specific preferences window?

I was mostly just thinking out loud - and that thought came out
because it would seem weird to both "Online Accounts" and a "Messaging
and VoIP Accounts" items in the control center (that, and we have
limited space there).

I guess my view is that mainstream/branded accounts (such as Google,
Facebook etc.) would be handled by the "Online Accounts" panel while
something as baroque as ICQ (it was once big but isn't really anymore)
would be handled by app-specific preference windows. Or maybe "Online
Accounts" is used to configure not only something like GOA (e.g.
branded accounts) but also Telepathy. I don't know. I'm not the best
person to make that call - ask the GNOME designers?

> This is somehow related to the "Contacts" thread, where it is said we
> could replace the empathy contact list with the shell; in this scheme
> there's no place any longer for that specific preferences window, and
> it makes sense (to me) to have it in the online accounts panel, along
> others.

Sure. FWIW, I think we probably need some high-level design input that
takes all these currently moving pieces and proposals into account.
Again, I defer to the designers here.

(Sorry if this sounds like a cop out. It's not. I agree this is an
important thing.)

Thanks,
David