Re: Having external control panels in System settings

[Calum Benson <calum benson oracle com>]

On 31 Jan 2012, at 16:19, Petko wrote:

> 
> On 01/31/2012 04:54 PM, Calum Benson wrote:
>> On 24 Jan 2012, at 14:20, Alberto Ruiz wrote:
>> 
>>> There are APIs to do this in Mac OS X, and I've never seen more than one or
>>> two extra items installed in a ac OS X host (mostly growl, the notification
>>> thingie)
>> I currently have 13 :)
>> 
>> Cheeri,
>> Calum.
> 
> Well pardon me but I guess you should get rid of some of your crap .

By "crap", I'll assume you mis-typed "stuff you bought the computer for in the first place" :)

> The next step is to whitelist the apps you can run on the OS , so it doesn't hurt the design ... Really no offence but it sounds like you have too much stuff on your computer .

Well, just for the record, the current list of 3rd-party pref panes on my Mac is:

Connect 360 -- for streaming content to TV (via Xbox)
Flash Player -- ok, this is crap, but arguably still a necessary evil for now...
Growl -- notification daemon that Alberto mentioned
iStatMenus -- system monitor widgets for the menu bar
M-Audio JamLab -- prefs for my guitar effects box
MacFuse -- Required for NTFS-3G
NTFS-3G -- Required for read/write access to NTFS volumes
Perian -- a bunch of additional Quicktime codecs
Xbox 360 Controllers -- for using Xbox controller for Mac gaming
Printopia -- lets me print direct from my iPad on my home network
Secrets -- Mac equivalent of gnome-tweak-tool
Wacom Tablet -- driver for my graphics tablet
Xmarks for Safari -- syncs my bookmarks across all my browsers on all my devices.

Most of those aren't exactly ueber-geek add-ons … gaming, web browsing, printing, drawing, recording music, are all things that a lot of people want to do with their PCs. 

I'd certainly agree that it's unfortunate that most of these things have to exist as Preference Panes. Good default behaviour and/or a Preferences dialog elsewhere could probably eradicate some of them altogether, but the design of OS X is such that there isn't really anywhere else to put the ones that really have to go somewhere.

Cheeri,
Calum.



> 
> Let me rephrase the problem - we want to be able to customize the system (the system , not just GNOME , because mr Nosera was wrong when he said that GNOME will become a whole system - GNOME stands on the shoulders of GNU/Linux ) , but have it look neat and unified . Here's the 3 options :
> 
> >like gnome 2 - have an open CC , app launcher - it's too messy
> 
> >like ... now - have a closed CC - I DO NOT have the needed system settings in it , and that's the reality of it , I don't care how happy you are with the design - it    is   just   not   effective
> 
> >an API to integrate - compromise solution - every system that uses GNOME has it's components that need to be integrated , so just give them that ability . It's not tossing of an icon in the CC , it can be done elegantly , and many people will be happy to work with you towards such a solution .
> 
> The GNOME project is an open project ,and it should be developed as one . I'll make a wild guess that a good portion of the developers have come here from other projects using GNOME and will go to other projects , so this is not a closed community and it would be for the best to make GNOME more compatible and friendly instead of confining it .
> 
> And a last thing , to the opposition of those ideas (and it's an advise in general) - please don't skip arguments when replying , it's a discussion , not a shouting fest. If I write something rational and you overlook it , it's pointless to even have a conversation .
> 
> That written ,I went and read a few of the older messages - well Alberto Ruiz said it all right . The point is that if there is willingness to work towards an API for an elegant implementation of external settings many of us will be happy to make it happen .
> 
> Regards,
> Petko
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-- 
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer     Oracle Corporation Ireland
mailto:calum benson oracle com         Solaris Desktop & Applications
http://blogs.oracle.com/calum          +353 1 803 3807

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Oracle Corp.