Re: Where to put your big widgets ...

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Michael Meeks <michael@helixcode.com> writes:

> 
> 	It seems to me that there is no problem with small, neat widgets
> going into Gtk, so we are then just left with the big ambling badly
> written widgets; it seems to me that these are ripe for becoming Bonobo
> controls.

The Gtk and gnome-libs boundaries are (or ought to be) usefulness to a
wide variety of applications, not size.
 
> > use our component model for certain purposes. Do you really think it
> > makes sense to say that the only way apps can share a widget that is
> > not in Gtk+ or gnome-libs is to make it a Bonobo component?
> 
> 	Probably yes.

If that's the answer we give, people will just create their own add-on
libraries and ignore the repository solution.

Taking this to an extreme, do you think it would make sense to turn
every widget in gtk+ and gnome-libs with a bonobo control? I hope we
can all agree that approach would be madness, at least as Bonobo
stands today or in the foreseeable future. In light of this, saying
that only Gtk+ and gnome-libs (or apps themselves) are allowed to
contain normal widgets but other libraries aren't, is a sure way to
get people to either not make libraries, or ignore that dictate.
 
> 
> 	Not true; admittedly it was rather ugly until recently for various
> reasons, however creating a new control ( equivilant to a widget ) is this
> simple:

As Nat and I both mentioned, while the simple mechanics of embedding a
control are extremely easy, exposing a custom widget API for a
component and also accessing this API from the client are not.

If I want to create a list or table type widget, having the API
exposed is the whole point; simple geometric embedding solves only a
very small part of the problem of using this widget as a component.

> 	b) Bonobo Controls equate to Gtk Widgets and are easy to use

I disbelieve.

I would like to point out for reference that I love Bonobo and want to
see it succeed. Indeed, I am working on a project that is perhaps more
tied to Bonobo than any other major GNOME application. But I don't
think Bonobo is an appropriate solution for every problem out
there. At least not right now.

 - Maciej