Re: Having external control panels in System settings

[Alberto Ruiz <aruiz gnome org>]

Truth be told, the fact that new panels inside the module doesn't give you more control, Ubuntu is changing quite a few things in both existing panels and new ones. And let me tell you the current result is far from pretty (a lot of modules are still the old python based ccapplets).

So in reality, making things harder for extensions to happen is only going to make extensions harder (and uglier). In my opinion, a nice API and a good UI guideline for extensions would avoid more ugly extensions than the current position. I think it is pretty obvious that such public API wouldn't end up in the same mess that we had before, where dropping a .desktop file was sufficient to extend the cc menu.

Things become a lot easier to handle when you assume that people are going to do that kind of stuff anyway, whether you like it or not. You are way better off (you have far more control) handling and assisting how they do it instead of going blind and deaf and pretend like you can fight such practice. (Just like prohibiting drugs won't stop people from consuming them).

As much as I generally like the idea of not being too careful about the status quo and keeping some aspects of our platform and desktop mediocre by trying to do too many things at the same time. I think is pretty clear at this point that distros and ISVs need to extend the Control Center, and this is open source so this is going to happen whether we want it or not.

2012/1/23 Federico Mena Quintero <federico gnome org>

[Er, sorry if you get a duplicate - I sent the other one from the wrong email address :( ]

On Mon, 2012-01-23 at 15:20 +0000, Bastien Nocera wrote:

> That's the point. We don't want to integrate everything into the system
> settings. We want to include the things that make sense, and to be able
> to say what makes sense, we need to act as gatekeepers.

What's required to make a new panel in the control center, anyway?
Don't you just have to implement a GIOModule that basically returns a
widget, which the control center's shell embeds within itself?

Being able to implement such modules outside g-c-c's source tree would
be convenient for people who need configurability for things that Gnome
doesn't contemplate.

This isn't about "should Gnome control everything", but rather about
"let people make Gnome as useful as possible for them".  We can
certainly recommend that apps don't install random crap in the control
center, and that the control center be left for things that can't be
sensibly contained within a single application.

 Federico

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--
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz