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

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi,

Colin Walters wrote:
> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 3:27 AM, Dave Neary <dneary gnome org> wrote:
>> If we hard-code what GNOME supports into the design, when the needs
>> evolve then we need a centralised decision for each new need. Better to
>> provide a way for applications to integrate with system settings,
> 
> These aren't applications, and no - we don't want to encourage apps to
> drop things in system settings.

There is a world of distance between "disallow", "allow, but discourage"
and "encourage".

I definitely think that there's value in having a firm hand over
preferences, and (say) defining all of the top level preference
categories - I also think there's value in allowing applications to add
preferences inside a given panel, and providing firm guidelines for when
that's appropriate and how to do it well.

> As far as helping out extension authors - yes, I think that has value,
> but it's not as important as moving GNOME away from the "bucket of
> parts" model is.

For something like this, I have a feeling we may only get one chance. If
you don't allow any differentiation on top of GNOME, there is at least
one distribution that will just do preferences differently & ignore
control-center. And I can imagine that future environments along the
lines of moblin, MeeGo, Maemo, etc will end up redoing the preferences
from scratch, rather than building on the gnomecc work.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org