Re: Having external control panels in System settings

[Alberto Ruiz <aruiz gnome org>]

2012/1/24 Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>

On Tue, 2012-01-24 at 00:07 +0000, Alberto Ruiz wrote:

> 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).

Ubuntu don't ship GNOME. They use bits of GNOME to ship Unity.

They're also the only distributor of those bits mangling the panels in
that way, so I'd class them as the exception rather than the rule.

Is that it? Are you not going to comment on anything else of what I've said? I am really not at all interested in the whole Ubuntu vs. GNOME flame war that you seem so keen on bringing up. As a GNOME contributor, I want to discuss how things get done in GNOME, and this topic affects Ubuntu as much as it affects any other distributor.

But the main reason I care about this point is not because of distributors, it is about ISVs that I care about. I want them to be able to extend it in a way that makes sense. Dropbox or the nVidia specific settings are valid use cases for this, there's no way such items will go upstream, and by keeping the gates into the CC panel closed, we are forcing ISVs to ship those configuration panels as standalone apps, which diminishes the overall GNOME experience (I'd say users are likely to look after such settings in the control center panel, don't you think?).

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), given the amount of audience that such platform has, I really don't buy your argument that by opening up such interface the gates of hell are going to open. Again, there is a fundamental difference between placing a .desktop in a given menu structure and extending an application with a plugin.

I find it a bit odd that we care so much about the mess that happened before and we are not doing an in depth analysis on why it happened. Why don't we try this approach and if things get messy, then we figure out what to do? 

-- 
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz