Re: GNOME Usability Improvements - Fix the window manager!

["James M. Cape" <jcape jcinteractive com>]

Matthias Warkus wrote:
> 
> +++ Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 02:54:06AM +0200 +++
> Ronald de Man e-mails me. Film at 11. Reply right now, after the break.
> > On Tue, Aug 03, 1999 at 12:30:42AM +0200, Matthias Warkus wrote:
> > > +++ Mon, Aug 02, 1999 at 02:54:53PM -0400 +++
> > > jack wallen, jr e-mails me. Film at 11. Reply right now, after the break.
> > > > as a *user* of gnome here's what i think is necessary for Gnome (remember
> > > > this is an opinion ;-) ):
> > > >
> > > > Applications/Applets:
> > > >
> > > >   Office Suite
> > >
> > > Someone needs to code it. An office suite is a major effort. Millions
> > > of lines of code, that is.
> >
> > There's a Gnome Workshop project (with no less than 3 word processor
> > attempts, which I think is a bit unfortunate).
> 
> To me, the only piece of Gnome Workshop that looks like it's making
> any progress is Gnumeric. The entire Gnome Workshop project looks a
> bit defunct.
> 
> [gnome-ppp]
> 
> > So the novice user reboots to windows.
> 
> (I don't care about that kind of rhetorics, BTW.) What do you want? Do
> you want gnome-ppp to be setuid? It would have got to be audited for
> that, and of course there are already enough setuid programs on an
> average Linux system, the less, the better.

The "ideal" situation would be for gnome-ppp to detect if it is in the
dip group and then inform the user of this. The dialog might say:

"In order to initiate a dialup connection, you must be a member of the
"dip" group. This allows you to restrict access to dialup connections to
only those users you want to have access."
[Add me to the dip group] [Cancel]

And the "add me to the dip group"  button would launch a GNOME User
Manager capplet under the "System Administrator" (see other messages by
myself). This would prompt the user for the root password, add them to
the group, and the user would be on his/her merry way.

> > It would also be nice if gmc windows (including the desktop) would
> > automatically detect directory changes (so that icons appear whenever
> > a new file is created, etc.).
> 
> Yes, but that would need periodical rescans, which can generate high
> I/O traffic. That in turn can mean high network traffic, depending on
> the system setup.

So check mtab to see if the directory about to be accessed is listed as
smbfs or nfs. If it is, then don't use this periodical rescan, or the
magic file based icon selector. There is a solution to the problem.

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com

    "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them
     pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
        -- Winston Churchill