Re: no external panels for gnome-control-center [was Re: GNOME Feature Proposal: Backup]

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Wed, 2011-05-11 at 02:15 +0200, Luca Ferretti wrote:
> Il giorno mar, 10/05/2011 alle 20.51 +0100, Bastien Nocera ha scritto:
> >> http://live.gnome.org/DejaDup/Screenshots/Future for screenshots.
> >> Déjà Dup 19.1, which includes those changes, is already in Fedora
> >> Rawhide and will be in Ubuntu Oneiric once we land the GNOME 3
> control
> >> center.
> >
> > That won't work for long. Once we've move the Bluetooth panel directly
> > in the control-center, we'll be removing the external API from the
> > control-center. It was only added for gnome-bluetooth, and will be
> > removed then as well.
> 
> Wait! Maybe I missed something (busy weeks, sorry), but...
> 
> #1 -- was this announced/proposed to desktop-devel-list?

No, because it was only made for one particular module
(gnome-bluetooth), and by me. The reason we had an external API was so
that gnome-bluetooth code happen in time for 3.0. And we've reverting it
to 3.2.

> #2 -- will gnome-c-c module englobe _all_ chosen panels? who will
> approve them? g-cc maintainers? release team? design team? a pool on
> doodle.com :P )?

Maintainers and designers. Maintainers meaning that if it's not
designed, it won't go in. So really, designers.

> #3 -- I feel this "no-API for gnome-cc" approach crashes with planned
> and upcoming changes in GNOME Desktop modules definition, as well as
> with the idea of "GNOME as platform for everyone". This proposal from
> Deja-Dup is a neat example. IMHO deja-dup is not suitable to be a "core"
> module (as per current definition of core: only stuff needed to start
> user session), but it's perfect as "approved by GNOME" module. Also,
> IMHO the UI proposed changes to Deja-dup preferences are well designed
> for GNOME 3 experience (backup as a service, not as user launchable
> app). So, this seems to be a contradiction: we can't place you in core,
> but we don't want to provide the ability for a proper integration. Also,
> what about third parts, vendors and distros? For instance, Ubuntu
> provides a really useful Additional Drivers tool and I suppose the best
> place for it is System Settings > Hardware; same for Prey
> (http://preyproject.com/) and it's configuration panel. Are we going to
> make GNOME a closed desktop?

The "System Settings" isn't a random dumping ground for preferences. If
we (we being the designers, and then the maintainers, in that order)
don't think that the setting belongs in the System Settings, then it
won't go in there.

For backup, as I mentioned, we're not averse to having backup, but the
preferences will need to go through design before that happens.

As for "preyproject" (their website not working seriously hampering what
I could find out about it), it seems that most of the functionality
would be in the privacy and sharing panel.

Currently, there are 2 control-center modules that live outside System
Settings, Bluetooth and the ibus configuration. The former should be
merged in, and the latter should be merged with the layouts tab in
region & language, as designed.

We started moving things into gnome-control-center so we could stop the
various panels looking like they were a hodge-podge of thrown together
bits. Opening the door to 3rd-party panels would 1) get us the bug
reports 2) destroy the work we carefully crafted.

Cheers