Re: RFC: Tweaking tool for GNOME3

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Johannes Schmid wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > https://github.com/nzjrs/gnome-tweak-tool
> >
> > It requires a recent pygobject build has been tested on a jhbuilt shell,
> > and Ubuntu Natty.
> >
> > I understand there is legitimate resistance to such a tool, as offering
> > multiple customisation options could weaken the design and marketing
> > message of the new shell. This is why I have not blogged nor posted this
> > widely. On the other hand, such tools will inevitably appear to fill the
> > power user niche so why not make the best of. I encourage the shell
> > developers to take it as a compliment when people express interest in
> > tweaking gnome-shell; it means they are using it and have not
> > reflexively stayed with GNOME2 or moved elsewhere.
> >
> > So I am asking for feedback, both strategic and functional on the tool.
> > It has a limited set of tweaks so far, but adding new ones is
> > straightforward (see tweaks/tweak_*.py).
> 
> There is an "official" effort for writing such a tool so please contact
> desktop-devel-list 

It has been discussed in the past, but nothing was ever done about it.
The "official" line (though quite what that means in GNOME is anyone's
guess ;) ) is that GNOME Shell / GNOME 3 is awesome as is. If John (or
anyone else) wants to write a tweak tool, than that is totally cool
though.

Thinking about this a little more, one danger of this tool is that
people immediately start using it with GNOME 3. I'd personally encourage
everyone to try the new desktop for a protracted period of time before
making any changes, however. It might take a little getting used to, but
there are good reasons for the design being the way it is, and it really
should offer a superior user experience to a customised version.

> because people will be highly interested and there will
> be not resistance. After all, this is nothing to ship by default but very
> useful to power-users.
> 
> And technically, pygobject seems a good choice!

Yeah, great to see the new bindings in action! Nice work John.

Best wishes,

Allan
-- 
Blog: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org