[gnome-love] GSOC idea: improvement of gnome-network-manager

[Joost van der Hoff <2noob2banoob gmail com>]

Hi all,

I've got the idea of making improvements to the gnome network manager. 
The improvements I'm thinking of are the following:

* Get rid of the "more networks" submenu which I think is an ugly way to 
make the network manager smaller.

* To keep the height of the network manager limited it might be a good 
idea to add a separate column for wireless networks. This might require 
a new GTKWidget but it's probably doable.

* This should not be done in places where only a few wireless networks 
are available. Also it should be possible for other network interfaces 
to get their own column if they offer a lot of connections.

* Currently connection strength is viewed in a way which is nicely 
associated with networks, but only has 5 levels. Users should be able to 
choose between this and the old progress bar approach (which has 
something like 100 levels).

* In the window where all network connections are listed, especially 
under the wireless tab, the networks should be listed in the order in 
which the NM tries to connect to them. Also it should be possible to 
move them up and down in this order by two simple buttons, or maybe even 
drag and drop if the community would turn out to ask for it.

That's pretty much it. The last point might be hard, I don't know a lot 
about it yet but I believe the networks might be put in the config file 
in an order which isn't necessarily the order in which NM tries to 
connect to them, correct me if I'm wrong.

So, what do you think of this Idea? Also if there are things about the 
Network Manager you think differently about than me, please share your 
ideas.

Joost van der Hoff.