A few thoughts on Compliancy Levels..

[Bowie Poag <bjp primenet com>]

Here's a brief preview of how the UISG will address the issue of
Compliancy Levels, before the flesh revision goes public on Saturday:

 o Levels 1 thru 5 are ALL "Gnome Compliant". Applications which
   dont adhere to even the most basic guidelines given in Level 5
   are said to be "Non-Compliant".

 o The levels themselves are set up with simple criteria that must be
   met in order to attain that level. For example, Level 5 is the bare
   minimum which must be met, in order for an app to call itself
   "Gnome Compliant"..Level 4, the step above it, encompasses everything
   in Level 5, plus a little more..And the level above THAT, Level 3,
   encompasses everything in 4,plus a little more. Nothing too rough.

 o Judgement for Compliance is done through the Compliancy Checklists
   shown on the UISG webpage. If you can answer Yes to all of the items,
   pat yourself on the back -- Your app is Gnome Level (?) Compliant.

 o The Compliancy Levels under the UISG are set up in such a way as to
   encourage developers to constantly reach for stricter and stricter
   compliance, with Level 1 being the ultimate attainable goal. Reaching
   Level 1 has nothing to do with "building in extra features", or
   "adding exotic options".. It merely means that this application 
   more strictly adheres to the Style Guide reccomendations & mandates
   than a lower level app does.  A Gnome app is STILL "compliant",
   even though it is loosely compliant at something like Level 5.
   I guess you coul say that a Level 1 App is "more compliant", and a
   Level 5 app is "less compliant" , but I really dont like to think
   of it that way. Theyre ALL compliant -- Just some more strictly
   adhere to the guide than others, and are ranked by level accordingly.

 o The Compliancy Levels are are constructed in such a fashion so as to
   allow modifications of the level criteria, without breaking
   consistancy. No (major) revisions would need to be performed on the
   Compliancy Level definitions for at least another 4-5 years. The
   entire document (UISG V2.0) is designed this way. A nice, built-in
   measure against obsolescence.


More later,
Bowie


+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bowie J. Poag  bjp@primenet.com  http://www.nubox.dyn.ml.org |
| Sand and grit in a concrete base.                            |
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