Re: Xscreensaver problem with contol center

[Ian Peters <itp helixcode com>]

On Thu, Dec 07, 2000 at 04:29:58PM -0500, jgotts linuxsavvy com wrote:
> In message <20001207022137 A11233 flux>, Ian Peters writes:
> 
> >alternative configuration (Jamie Zawinski doesn't believe that users
> >should see a small version of the screensaver, so he maintains his
> >own).
> 
> Are you sure about this?  It sounds wrong.

I work with Bradford (the new control center maintainer).  He talked
with Jamie about the new capplet for the control center, and Jamie has
always been against a preview version, arguing that it does not always
accurately represent how the screen hack will appear full size.

> I think the reason he implemented -crapplet is that gnomecc uses a really
> bizarre scheme to define modes, e.g.
> 
> /usr/share/control-center/.data/Morph3d.desktop
> 
> .data seems pretty bizarre to me.  Also, when Jamie adds new modes to
> xscreensaver they don't automatically show up in gnomecc.  I'm not strictly a
> complainer, I've added a few .data files myself.
> 
> The maintainer of gnomecc is hard at work on a new screensaver applet which
> fixes these limitations.  For now, though, -crapplet isn't bad at all, at least
> for the moment.

It's bad when it:

 a) silently replaces what the user is used to without asking
 b) crashes because xscreensaver was compiled without support for
    GNOME
 c) asks the user to type in the command line of the screen hack
    themselves, pointing them to the man page when they click on the
    Help button, rather than giving them a graphical configuration
    method.

I agree that the current scheme isn't perfect, but it does make it
easier for the average user to configure their screensaver.  The
Debian maintainers choice to silently replace the screensaver capplet
with xscreensaver-demo --crapplet, a less friendly non-functional
configuration method, was a mistake.

-- 
Ian Peters
itp helixcode com