Gnomish Thoughts

[SEGV <mlepage cgocable net>]

Okay, I've really only played with GNOME 0.3 (with E-DR0.14 on Debian 2.0)
enough to have done a once through.

First, a couple of questions:

1) Is there a swallow-able load applet?
2) Why are my fonts (eg, in gtop) so huge and pixellated?
3) Why can't I play sounds? Does esound grab the devices forever?


Now, for some comments...

First, I understand that a purpose of a desktop is to provide a consistent UI.
Even if that isn't the *only* purpose, it's still high on the list. Granted?

Now, providing a common widget kit, and even common routines (session management
etc.) doesn't *necessarily* imply a consistent UI. For example, any GNOME
developer can violate whatever standards may be in place. And that's assuming
standards go to that level of detail.

Some examples.

My utilities menu has some items with icons, some without. Are some apps more
special than others (Orwell flashback)? Some items have "...", some don't. Yet
they all launch applications (as opposed to being actions), so theoretically
they should all have "...". However, if we assume that *all* those menu items
launch things (as opposed to causing actions), then we can simplify the screen
by not having "..." everywhere. Either way, currently it is inconsistent.

Next up are some menus. On some apps the file menu is "File". On others it is
"Main". On others, it is a GNOME icon! Sometimes quit is "Exit", sometimes it is
"Quit" (but still with the 'Q' accelerator!). The help menu is sometimes right
justified (Motif compliant) and sometimes not (like Windows). Sometimes "about"
is under the file menu, sometimes under the help menu. Sometimes it is a button
in the window. Sometimes it is "About", sometimes it is "About App_Name".
Sometimes it has "...", sometimes it doesn't.

So, I'm glad I installed GNOME to get away from the inconsistencies of
heterogenous X windows apps! And so much better than NT or Macintosh!  :-)

Are you getting my point? I'm wearing my user hat right now, but I'm a developer
myself. And I usually try to follow standards where they exist, even if I
sometimes don't fully agree with them. Because a standard, even if not *quite*
perfect, is sometimes better than no standard at all.

I am tinkering with my own GTK+ app, which will likely be a GNOME app. I'll be
sure to follow whatever standards I can find (or ascertain) myself, so in part
this is to bring this issue to attention so I know what is the GNOME way.

So I don't know if this is due to a lack of standardization, or a lack of
documentation of the standards, or a lack of "enforcement" of the standards, or
what. But clearly there is room for improvement on this front.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents, on what I've found in an hour with GNOME. Any other
examples along these lines? Comments?

-- 
SEGV    http://www.cgocable.net/~mlepage/