gnome-db UI & help

[rodrigo linuxave net]

Hi all!

As you may have noticed, I've started with the conversion of gnome-db to
a more componentized architecture.

As you'll also notice as soon as you check out from CVS, there are some
things that don't compile right now, so please forgive me and:
* remove builder from SUBDIRS in gnome-db/Makefile.am
* remove rolodex from SUBDIRS in gnome-db/tools/Makefile.am

But this is not the only thing I'm changing. I'm specially worried about
the UI. So, I've started to use the GAL library (released with the
latest gnumeric, but don't worry, the code compiles ok if you don't have
GAL installed), which contains several nice-looking widgets. Right now,
the only one I'm replacing is the GtkPaned widgets with EPaned widgets,
which look better. But not only do I want to use better-looking widgets,
but to improve all the UI, since there are some widgets/screens which
could by far be improved.

So, I'm asking for help on:
* suggestions about how a widget/screen could look nicer and be easier
to use
* help rewriting/improving some of the already existing widgets. This
is:
    - make a NICE grid widget. The current one uses GtkCList, and so is
quite limited to what
        can be done with it. I'm thinking on using ETable (included in
GAL), but at the first look
        I've found it a bit tricky to use. If somebody knows/wants to
rewrite it using this widget
        or another one (GtkSheet, GnomeCanvas as in gnumeric, etc), go
on please.
    - data-bound entries: one thing I think should be available in
gnome-db is to have several
        kind of entry types which are bound to a specific field in a
given Gda_Recordset. This
        will help a lot when making data entry screens. We could have a,
for example,
        GnomeDbDataControl widget (hidden one), and then some
GnomeDbEntry's bound
        to it, and, when you move in the recordset pointed to by the
data_control object,
        all entries are updated to the values in the new selected row.
Other interesting things could
        be added this way, such as data-type validation (date, string,
number...)
    - support in Glade: I plead once again for help on this. It is a
good opportunity to have more
        people use gnome-db through glade, so please, is there somebody
wanting to add full
        support for the gnome-db widgets in Glade?

I myself will continue with the bonobification and the rewrite of the
GnomeDbBrowser widget, to support the (not yet existant) new schema
modification support in GDA. So, I would really appreciate any help on
the above issues to speed up the release of the next version. And I
would pay a beer to whomever lends a hand....

So please, get your CVS running, and compile!

cheers