Re: [gdm-list] face-browser proposal for new gdm

["Matthias Clasen" <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Nov 23, 2007 11:50 AM, Frederic Crozat <fcrozat mandriva com> wrote:

> >
> > But finding this
> > "Theme-support was based on a XML-file in the old gdm. This should be
> > taken over to the new gdm."
> > in the text has me concerned. I hope you don't mean that the new greeter should
> > read the same xml format that the current greeter was using for themes ?
> > Getting rid of that format is one of my personal hopes for a new greeter...
>
> Well, I must say I seriously hope the xml format will be kept.
>
> It is one of the few things which allows us to have almost the same
> greeter theme file between kdm and gdm. It would be a pity to loose it
> (and even more to not be able to have a graphically appealing and
> themable greeter).

I'd propose to have a little poll among the people who have to tweak
the various
distros gdm themes regularly. I can only say that from my own experience, and
from sitting next to Ray, the format is not well-loved...

The semantics are poorly documented, hard to understand and difficult
to use. The
format also has limitations that make many interesting designs impossible to
implement (e.g. the fact that size-changes of elements at runtime are
very poorly
handled, leading to broken situations when translated strings vary in
size). The
implementation on top of GnomeCanvas has serious drawbacks, e.g. for
accessibility.

I believe the current thinking wrt to themable greeters is to offer a
sane dbus interface
that facilitates writing alternative greeters rather than offering
explicit theming support.
If you really insist on keeping compatibility with the old xml format,
your best bet may
be to port the old greeter to the greeter dbus interface - though I
have no idea how
feasible that is.

Matthias