Re: [Evolution-hackers] PIM application suite

[William Jon McCann <mccannwj pha jhu edu>]

JP Rosevear wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-04-16 at 17:08 -0700, Tristan O'Tierney wrote:
>
> > i envision splitting it up into apps that are well
> > defined
> > an addressbook, mail app, and calendar app.
>
> Well, this is kind of whats happened.  I mean the mailer, addressbook,
> calendar all have their own separate code bases in the source tree but
> share common things like some widgets, configuration code, etc.  In
> reality I could write a trivial hack that shows only one component at a
> time (just remove the component buttons and have the New button only use
> the items for the current component).  Then just evolution-1.5 -c "mail"
> or whatever to get the correct component.  Nothing else would have to
> change afaik.

I think that the current design is very good in that it makes this quite 
easy to do.  In addition to the changes you list it would probably be 
good to also change:

 - window title and icon
 - help files to be component specific
 - about box to be component specific
 - settings dialog (should only bring up settings for that component)
 - remove Send/Receive for contacts, tasks, and calendar (does it do 
anything?  If it does, I have no idea what.)
 - remove "work offline" from non-mail components?  Shouldn't this just 
work?  Always caching locally when possible?

But this isn't very much really.

Hiding the component buttons should also allow the entire source pane to 
collapse completely.  This would allow the user to maximize space for 
the interesting stuff.  The source selection pane is natural in a mail 
client but a bit awkward to always have displayed in, say, Contacts.

> Where we go in future is another matter.  Perhaps apps without a common
> "shell".  That would certainly reduce some of bonobo ui usage (no need
> to merge menus any more).

Would this also make it easier to add component specific command line 
options?  This might make it easier to add specific URI handlers.  As 
well as do things like:

evolution-calendar --select='2004-04-23' --view=day

This would be a real big win.

Jon