Re: Having external control panels in System settings

[Alberto Ruiz <aruiz gnome org>]

2012/2/7 Olav Vitters <olav vitters nl>

Distributions can patch what they need. Mageia does not patch. For me,
it is a benefit that applications cannot use it.

If I check some of the custom control panels at work, I see:
- Java
- Program Updates
- Realtek HD Sound Effect Manager
- Remote Control
 funny one, cannot change anything
- Run Advertised Programs
- SAP configuration
- Flash Player

That isn't really a good argument to disallow extensibility, there are an infinite number of things that shouldn't go there. There's also an infinite number of things that shouldn't go to the application list and we are not doing anything to stop that from happening. Now Giovanni just made a reasonable list of things that make perfect sense as third party additions to GCC, I haven't read any compelling rebuttal on why those items shouldn't go into GCC. 

There are plenty of apps out there missing a high resolution icon, such things actually have a much worse impact on the perception of GNOME than a weird panel in GCC, are we stopping people from installing apps with ugly/small res icons? No.

We have to accept that bad practice is going to happen anyway, so the way to address this is good guidelines and public shame :-)

 

I don't see why any of above should be separately in System Settings
(program updates is already in system settings btw, but then better
integrated).

Is the request for the API solely for distributions?

I think that Deja Dup or Dropbox or Ubuntu One, are perfect examples, they are not applications, they don't help the user to achieve a task, they are just settings for a system wide specific service, we can't anticipate every single way in which third parties are going to need to extend it, so I don't think that fine grained extensibility cuts it (ie through GOA). Going further, someone might want to do a GNOME OS Server Edition and might want to add advanced control of networking settings (such as setting up network bridges and VPNs), a panel to control a network SAN or a specific printer, those are third party system components that make little sense upstream given our focus but that still make sense.

 

Note: I do have an nvidia card. I don't think the nvidia stuff belongs
in system settings. Further, I initially disliked the API removal. I've
changed my opinion.

 

wrt that note, I find it really odd that we are so much against the nVidia panel and yet we are writing a wacom tablets panel ourselves.

--
Regards,
Olav

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-- 
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz