Ooqstart + Gnome2 + KDE

[Kumaran Santhanam <kumaran@alumni.stanford.org>]

Hi Rene -

Below is a message that I sent to others with similar questions
about ooqstart.  As you can see, I've outlined a strategy that
will eliminate the dependence on either GNOME or KDE.  I want to
use the docklet interface to present a system tray icon on all
desktops.  In any case, please read the email below and let me
know if anybody can provide some assistance.

Thanks,
Kumaran



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 07:49:56 -0800 (PST)
From: Kumaran Santhanam <kumaran@alumni.stanford.org>
Subject: Ooqstart + Gnome2 + KDE

Hello -

Over the past few months, all of you have emailed me to ask about 
support for Gnome 2 in Ooqstart.  I have been very busy with 
other things, and my standard reply has been that I will not be 
developing it further for the foreseeable future.

However, the emails keep coming, and since there is such 
overwhelming interest, I have reconsidered my position.  My other 
activities have lightened up a bit, and I might have some time in 
the next few weeks to bring Ooqstart to a v1.0 release.

This time, the strategy is a little different than before.  
Please allow me to outline it below:

1) I am going to rewrite the code to be completely
GUI-independent.  The application will have a command line
interface as well as a basic GUI configuration utility.

2) The GUI configuration utility will be written using FLTK 
(www.fltk.org) for maximum portability.  FTLK is a lightweight 
statically-linked library designed for small GUI applications.

3) Configuration information will be stored in ~/.ooqstart 
instead of using GConf so that it becomes independent of GNOME.

4) I will provide stubs to create a docklet interface so that a 
system tray icon can be provided on all desktops.

5) Create packages for major distributions (RedHat, Debian, 
Mandrake, etc).


To accomplish all of this, I am going to need your help.  I have 
the time to do steps 1-3 above and get the code into a workable 
state.  After that, I would really appreciate it if somebody 
could contribute a docklet interface for GNOME/KDE and other open 
desktops.

Remember, this has to be independent of libraries in either
desktop environment.  I will, of course, provide programmatic
stubs so that the docket interface can simply call into the main 
application to accomplish various tasks.

Please let me know how you can help.  If you know anybody who
could contribute steps 4-5, do ask them if they would like to
lend their assistance.

Thanks,
Kumaran