Re: On GNOME 3.0 features

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 11:45 +0200, Giovanni Campagna wrote:
> [Resending because the first message seems lost]
> 
> Today the set of expected features for GNOME 2.34 / 3.0 System Settings
> (former Control Center) has been revealed on the wiki.
> 
> As expected, some functionality was moved, some was added, and some was
> killed. Unfortunately, as a daily GNOME user, I find some removal
> questionable.
> In particular:
> 
> - why all the theming stuff is optional?
> All operating systems and desktop environments, including the most
> minimal wms, have some theming support.

No, they don't. Some of them only have those as add-ons, which is what
we're trying to do here.

The default will come with a minimal amount of personalisation, such as
backgrounds and colours, but not "theming" per se.

> Also, not all people have the same tastes: some like Clearlooks, some
> like Humanity, some use Murrine, some use QtCurve. I for example like
> the current GNOME 2.0 default, and would like to use it even for GNOME
> 3.0 if the future theme doesn't suit me. 
> Thirdly, different distros have different defaults, and the theme is one
> of the most prominent detail in the UI, but users should not pick their
> distro based on the theme!

The code to switch themes will still be available in the widget set, we
just won't be shipping a tool to change that by default.

> - why no provision for setting Metacity themes, Gtk themes and icon
> themes independently?
> 
> Those (and Shell themes, btw) are mostly independent settings, people
> should be free to make their preferred combination, without tweaking
> with .theme files or dconf-editor.

See http://www.hadess.net/2010/02/were-removing-settings-again.html

Nag Vincent Untz if you think the code isn't being written fast
enough :)

> - the repeat key setting is necessary
> 
> Move it to the accessibility panel if you prefer, but it is needed, for
> the same reason we have StickyKeys and BounceKeys: some people are
> unable to press the same key in succession, some on the other hand keep
> their keys pressed to long (and enter duplicated chars every time).

Agreed, please file a bug about that.

> - you cannot ditch the Preferred Applications panel
> 
> Not only the EU mandated multiple browser choice in a competing OS,
> people want to choose among Epiphany (GNOME default), Firefox (distro
> default), Chromium (or Chrome, if they don't care) or even Konqueror.
> Terminal selection may be less of an issue, but on the other hand people
> want the choice between Rythmbox or Banshee, Totem or MPlayer. I agree
> that the accessibility tab is not needed now (handled by Universal
> Access panel).

I agree that some of that functionality should be available, but that's
not the right way to do it. Will need some thought.

> Actually, I would like to see this panel extended with default
> application setting for every file type, so that an existing file and a
> nautilus property page is not needed for this. (Command line setting is
> even worse, unless you know the application desktop id).

Again, this needs some thoughts, but I don't really see the point in
making this possible when a file isn't present.

> - why handling the System Monitor as a System Setting panel?
> 
> It is an independent tool (like baobab, palimpsest, gnome-nettool,
> dconf-editor...), deserves to live in Applications -> System Tools.

Agreed there. This seems to have been done independently of the rest of
the work on the control-center. File a bug, and we can discuss it there.

> Now some personal curiosities:
> 
> - will the Web Accounts panel include current "Messaging and VoIP
> Accounts" capplet (provided by Empathy + Mission Control)? Should it be
> renamed "Online services" to be include social accounts (libsocialweb,
> libgwibber, GNU Social)

This will need fixing, we shouldn't have 2 separate applications for
this, and it would be nice if the more complicated (and mature) empathy
dialogue got made into a full-fledged configuration tool for social
networks and web.

> - will Samba shares and NFS mounts handled by Privacy and Sharing?

Probably not.

>  What
> about RDP / VNC (currently marked '?')?

VNC, certainly, as vino handles it.

> - are there plans (long term) for a Security panel, including PolicyKit
> configuration, firewall (iptables) and the like?

Firewall, probably not.

> - will Network replace nm-connection-editor, thus configuring
> NetworkManager only? Or some sort of pluggable backend will be
> introduced for distro which don't ship NM?

That will be up to other people to do the work I would expect.

> - similarly, will Users Accounts be tied to the accountservice or will
> it use the System Tools Backend? Or maybe it will use a system tool
> backend itself using the accountsservice instead of going directly
> to /etc/passwd?

The accountsservice is purpose built for the user accounts dialogue.
You'd be better off adding support for your distro to it, rather than
relying on the system tools backend, which has a too coarse
authentication model for the purpose.

> - how do you plan the Services capplet will work with systemd, upstart
> and sysvinit, each having a different model and implementation of what
> is service, how it is started and how it is configured?

Not planned, and I don't know anyone who's interested in that,
short-term.

> - in the end, are the GNOME System Tools about to die?

That's really up to them.

Cheers