xalf

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Alan Cox <alan redhat com> writes: 
> > 	(E) It was pointed out that xalf provides application launching
> > 	feedback.  However, the normal xalf symbol is tucked away in the
> > 	corner of the foobar and is not easily noticed. Opinions seem
> > 	divided on whether other configuration options for xalf would do
> > 	the trick or not. A few people felt that nothing short of being
> > 	able to stop people doing multiple launches would be sufficient.
> 
> For a kiosk if its like the gaming world then you want a loading logo/anim
> smack in the middle of the screen. 
> 

Unfortunately xalf doesn't _work_, so the splashscreen would get
"stuck."

I think xalf needs to step back and rethink its design with some
important requirements:

 - it must use a spec on freedesktop.org so we can get apps to 
   adopt spec widely, even non-gnome apps
 - said spec must allow 100% reliable operation
 - for apps that don't implement the spec, we can have some hack,
   but the hack must fail more gracefully than current hack. 
   e.g. perhaps if any window gets mapped the progress indicator
   ends. Right now the indicator gets stuck.

Also, creating a 1x1 pixel window at coordinates 10,10 or whatever it
does now is just hideous beyond words. ;-) Include a way to
communicate with the tasklist in the aforementioned spec.

xalf addresses an important usability problem but until it's fixed it
also creates some usability problems.

Havoc