Re: xscreensaver capplet.

[Chema Celorio <chema ximian com>]

Looking at xscreensaver-demo gave me the impression that it is not
serving the same objectives as the capplet. Seems like it supports more
features that we think are enough for users. It also does not plug in
into our archiver/locaetion management. I am assuming that you don't
want your xscreensaver-demo to depend on libcapplet.

overall it seems like the programs serve different needs. One is to demo
all the features of xscreensaver, the other one is a screensaver
configruator targeted at mortals.


> 
>    1: When one upgrades xscreensaver, the crapplet does not reflect
>       the addition of new modes.  That's because you felt the need to
>       keep a separate list of the hacks, rather than just parsing them
>       out of the ~/.xscreensaver file at run-time.  That's ridiculous.

good point. I will investigate this further.

> 
>    2: If GNOME was installed from RPM, and xscreensaver was installed
>       from source, then GNOME claims that there are *no* display modes.

solved if 1 is solved.

> 
>    3: If you've ever run the GNOME crapplet and allowed it to launch

you mean capplet here. Right ? or are you making fun. If you are so that
i stop taking you seriously.
 
>       xscreensaver, then from that point on, neither xscreensaver-demo
>       nor xscreensaver-command work right: the crapplet launches the
>       daemon in a stupid way that makes it impossible to ever run a
>       hack other than the crapplet-selected one.  Click on any other
>       hack, and the same (wrong) one runs.

This just looks like a bug, we should fix it.

> 
>    4: The crapplet still tries to control DPMS, but for about six months

ok, this was not a typo, great way to start communication. Why am i
loosing my time with you ? So I will only respond to the most important
point after this.

> I've been trying to reach a resolution on this for roughly the last
> two years.  So far, I've had lots of discussions about it with lots of
> people, and none of them have ever been able to tell me who ACTUALL
> has the power to make any decisions about this!  So it's great that
> so-and-so has some suggestions for how to improve xscreensaver-demo,
> but what I REALLY want to know is, what changes do I have to make to
> xscreensaver-demo to get someone in *authority* to be happy enough
> with it that I can kill off the crapplet once and for all.

I have the power to take this desition. 

>  - "The UI sucks."  Usually the criticism ends there.  Well, that
>    doesn't help me much.  I don't think the UI sucks; I actually 
>    think it's pretty straightforward.  If you think there's something
>    wrong with it, please make a suggestion for how it could be better.

Yes, i think the UI sucks. It has too many options that a normal mortal
user does not need to deal with.

For example. I don't think the user cares about :

* "gltext -text "%A%n%d %b %Y%n%r" -root"
* "xearth -nofork -nostars -ncolors 50 -night 3 -wait 0 -timewarp 400.0
-pos sunrel/38/-30"
* "Display subprocess errors"
* "Install colormap", does he konw what a color map is ?
* "Kill daemon"

I have some questions :

- Are you willing to remove a number of features from your demo program?
- Who will it integreate with our archiver so that we can do
location-managent ? 

regards,
Chema