Re: control center plans, etc.

[Stephen Browne <stephen browne sun com>]

Okay so it looks like I've been beaten down on the 'no dedicated config shell'
thing.

It now seems that we are going to have access to the configuration apps
via Nautilus (a bit like windows - and gets my vote) and through some
kind of dedicated shell like the one Bradford is working on.

My questions now are:

    Which is the default route?
    What exactly to we document?
    What to we recommend to our users?

> I don't run a file manager. It's not because I dislike file managers,
> I'm just used to the command-line tools and find them convenient enough
> for my purposes. But that argument doesn't apply to the control-center,
> where there isn't some command-line interface that I'd gotten used to
> back in the pre-GNOME days.

I understand this.  I used to wonder why it was that I always used explorer
in windows and yet I always use a terminal when using some flavour of unix.
At first I thought it was because windows has a good file manager and most
desktop environments on unix didn't, but then I realised that it wasn't this.
I was using a commandline interface on unix platforms because I was used to
it and it is powerful.  I didn't have the option on windows because the dos
shell
is crap!  :)

> Also, the config tools themselves are going to be GUI, so wrapping them
> in a GUI makes sense.

Agreed.  All I was saying was why can this GUI wrapper not be Nautilus?
Nautilus is a shell *NOT* a file manager!  Its how you do things.  Like explorer

on windows....its how people get things done.
Anyway I've backed down so don't flame me :)

> Like, I know I can type "sawfish-capplet" at the
> command line to start the control center and open the sawfish capplet if
> I want to, but that's silly, because since I'm going to have to use the
> mouse to play with the sawfish capplet, it makes more sense to me to
> click on the "control center" icon on my panel rather than going to the
> keyboard and back.

Yep I don't disagree here either.  But when you click on the control center
icon, could it not show you the config apps in the Nautilus shell?
Like windows->start->settings->control_panel shows an explorer window??

Sorry for sounding like a broken record.

Stephen.