Err..To Desktop Or Not To Desktop?

[Bowie Poag <bjp primenet com>]

Lemmie clear a few things up, here..


IMHO, Gnome would suffer greatly if there were no underlying foundation to
work from; You can call this foundation a "desktop" if you wish, or at
least something similar. Whatever you call it, it needs to be there,
absolutely. Gnome, without an underlying foundation, would effectively be
an incomplete design--And a good way to completely torpedo any hope of it
becoming successful in the future.

Gnome needs a desktop. Period. Now, whether or not >my< scope of influence
is large enough that I can mandate how such a desktop is to be constructed 
via the Style Guide, I dont know. I'll be talking to Marc Ewing (and a few
others) at Red Hat on monday, to discuss this very issue. Some people want
the Style Guide to simply address the format, layout and appearance of
apps.. Others want it to be a completely communist manifesto on the visual
layout and default appearance of everything top to bottom. Im prepared to
do both, if asked.

To stop with simply describing the form aplications are to appear in,
without at least attempting to address the functionality and appearance 
the underlying desktop, would, IMHO, leave the greater picture totally
incomplete. Theres no use in my writing the Style Guide if im going to be
forced to leave such a gaping hole in the overall design. An incomplete
design leaves the door wide open to inconsistancy, and the tendency of
coders to stray from established guidelines, which blows the whole point
of the Style Guide to begin with.

Now, if it turns out that following my talk with Marc and the others, that
my creative freedom in this DOES extend further than just covering the
appearance of apps, you can be absolutely certain that I will end up call
for a standardized desktop. By standardized, I mean only in its
functionallity. The physical appearance of which can't be enforced by a
style guide--Its up to the users own personal tastes and preferences.

"Standardized functionality" roughly just means "Were going to have a
desktop. The desktop must have these things..blahblahblah, blahblahblah, a
clock, and a trashcan.".. Just the same as describing something like a
flag as a "Were going to have a flag. A flag is a sheet of fabric,
blahblahblah, optionally displayed on a pole." ..And NOT describing what
colors it has, what emblem it shows, etc. Thats not my job.

I've been asked to write a Style Guide. What that encompasses, right now,
is still a little up-in-the-air. Its not my place to decide what the style
guide SHOULD encompass.

Any feedback regarding the issue would be greatly appreciated, in the
meantime.

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