Re: Welcome

[William Jon McCann <mccannwj pha jhu edu>]

Hi Jaap,

Jaap Haitsma wrote:
> > One of my goals is for this, or something like it, to become a cross 
> > desktop, implementation independent interface.
> Is your idea to just make a specification of the protocol and that other 
> screensavers such as kscreensaver can implement that as well or make 
> some kind of library that others can use?

Just the API.

> In either case I think it is a good idea to talk to the maintainer of 
> kscreensaver and other screensavers. Small thingy you probably already 
> thought of is that you might want to replace the word gnome with 
> something like freedesktop in the DBUS Service DBUS Object Path and DBUS 
> Interface.

That is definitely the next step.  First, we should make sure that it 
fits GNOME's needs.  :)

> Another idea is maybe some contest for screensaver authors to get some 
> high quality screensavers and a default screensaver for GNOME 2.14

One goal is to create an architecture that will foster the development 
of new and exiting screensaver themes.  However, I want this development 
to take place outside of gnome-screensaver.

One way we can do this is by simplifying what it means to be a 
screensaver theme.  The first step was to do away with vroot hacking and 
simply rely on an environment variable to find the window to draw to.

Another way we do this is to use common .desktop files to install new 
themes.

Also, separating the theme-engine from the theme will allow for the 
sharing of theme-engines among multiple themes (eg. the slideshow engine 
is used by multiple themes).

So, I support the independent development of new themes.  It would be 
nice to see screensaver themes on art.gnome.org at some point.

However, the default screensaver should probably always be "Blank screen".

Thanks,
Jon