Re: control center plans, etc.

[Chema Celorio <chema ximian com>]

We have been working on the new control center for some time, but has
not gotten to releasable quality yet.

So far, we have :
- Created a new shell
- Make the capplets pop up a dialog rather than embeding them
- Implemented location management, some capplets are using the location
manager already and it is very nice. 
- Metathemes, very nice too. This removes a lot of the old and most
confusing capplets.
(I liked the idea you once talked about regarding having a
control-center-plus module with all the advanced capplets like the
sawfish configurator for example) 
- XST, the setup tools will be launchable from the control-center
- Redid some capplets, they are better than the old ones but i still do
not like them.

But there is a lot of stuff we need to do, so it would be great if we
can coordinate this effort. Stuff that we need to do :
- Stabilize the new shell and beautify it.
- Reorganize the capplets
- Fix the GUI of the current capplets, right now the capplets are
somewhat complex.
- Implement the root manager 

On 19 Jun 2001 19:16:03 -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
>  
> Basically there are just a few simple features:
> 
>  - hack the control center to be a shell around one capplet 
>    (separate window for each capplet), kill try/revert,
>    kill menubar/statusbar/tree-on-the-side

This has already been done in the stable branch.

>  - add the "user prefs" virtual folder to Nautilus, icons in 
>    here launch a single standalone control panel

good idea.

>  - add the "system settings" virtual folder to Nautilus 
>    (contains Red Hat config tools in the Red Hat release)

or the Ximian Setup Tools in Ximian GNOME (and any other distro that
wants to use them)

>  - for future control panels there's no need to use libcapplet, 
>    etc., since control panels are just little dialogs they 
>    can just be small apps with no embedding involved.

Agreed, we have not dropped libcapplet for two reasons :
- We are using the location management &
- There is old code out there that is using it already.

but we would like to eventually drop libcapplet support.

> So, what are the current control center plans, how does this fit in,
> how much of this should go in CVS, on what branches should it go, etc.

see above.

> I see there are some changes in control-center HEAD but don't know
> what the plans are there.

These are the plans that we had, but i would love if we can work
together to fix the control center. I don't think there is a mailing
list for the control center. But i suggest that we (you and me)
coordinate to divide this tasks, either on an already existing mailing
list or create YET another mailing list. The most important thing, as i
see it is to reorganize the tasks that the user wants to do in the
different groups/capplets, its a big mess right now.

I suggest is that you take a look at the HEAD branch of the control
center and play with the loacation management capplet [1]. After that we
can come up with a plan on what to fix next and who is going to do what.

It is really nice to know that you want to work on this.

regards,
Chema

[1] Right now it is in the ximian-setup-tools module as the archiver is,
we can move this to an different, more apropiate module.