Re: GTK frontend updated in SVN
Hi
Today i had some time to move the progressbar to an appropriate place so
that now is no longer costantly displayed on screen.
I've also removed old pieces of hacky code (the main_menu hack) to be
able to move the progressbar and to make a bit cleaner the sourcecode.
The GTK FE aspect should now be more or less definitive: as you can see
the screen is now very empty, so we'll have to switch soon to 640x480.
The GTK FE is now almost complete in ts structure, tough many smaler
issues are still to be solved.
ciao
Attilio
*Reported issues related to the frontend
-Some extended descriptions include Blank lines between text lines: this
was needed with the NEWT frontend but makes no longer sense in the GTK
frontend, so blank lines should simply not be diplayed in the help area.
Note that having to display too long extended descriptions will force
the question to be diplayed in the bottom part of the screen rather than
in the middle, so blank lines-removal is needed.
-For those SELECT questions that do not have a default option the first
one shall be selected by default
-GtkTextView widgets esed to display question's descriptionand extended
description shall be skipped during TAB navigation
-When multiple questions are displayed togheter (e.g. debian mirror
manual choice) a better vertical packaging is needed in order not to
leave blank space between questions.
Note thet widgets used to display multiple questions togheter are
packaged into a scrolled window, that need childs widgets to expand in
order not to collapse over itself.
-The installer has problems with Arabic, The letters aren't joined
- If you switch to VT2 (shell console) while the frontend is running, the
frontend will "hijack" VT2 making the installer completely unusable.
THis bug was reported to show up under some circumstances, more
investigations are needed
Note that this only happens if you switch when the frontend is busy!
There is no problem if the frontend is waiting for input.
* Reported issues related to GTKDFB (not real bugs inside gtk.c code)
The following reported bugs are not related directly to the code inside
gtk.c but rather to GTKDFB.
All the mentioned above bugs do not shouw up using GTKX.
- when you "tab" into a list question, the default is always set to
the top of the list instead of the current default value; the
current default should be respected and the frontend should make
sure it is shown by scrolling the list if needed
(example: select English as language and when
This bug shows up in GTKDFB 2.0.9 only.
- RTL patch by Eugeniy works for almost everything inside the frontend
except for text inside GTKTreeView widgets
RTL support was introduced first in GTK 2.2, so this bug affects only
GTKDFB 2.0.9
-you can't select in lists by typing the first letter (as in newt
frontend) on GTKDFB since this is an unimplemented feature in GTKDFB
(any version)
(Gdk-DirectFB-WARNING **: gdk_display_request_selection_notification
Unimplemented function)
*Ideas for future development
-Developing different GTK themes for the frontend that, loaded at boot
time using the value specified in /etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc (gtk-theme-name =
"XYZ"), allow for visually imparied people to better distinguish colours.
-The SELECT handler should vertically align translated languages names.
This can be quickly implemented in an hacky way or, in a more proper
way, by using plugins
-When pressing "ESC" using the NEWT frontend you get back to the main
menu: should the GTK frontend implement such a functionality?
-A text is displayed in the bottom part of the screen and tells the user
about shortcut shortcut commands in the NEWT frontend: shall the GTK
FE display this string too? maybe in a statusbar at the bottom of the
screen?
-As "execute a shell", neither "configure base sytem" works in the GTK FE
Maybe we should suppress those functions for now. Maybe a new "shell-gtk"
udeb is needed instead of the current one?
Guess that depends on the reasons for the failure.
Thinking out load... A shell-gtk udeb could open a shell in a new window
and be hidden when you click the main window with an icon showing to
activate the shell again.
Maybe we could also show icons by default that open a window (with
scrollbar) showing logfiles (instead of having to switch to VT3/4)...
Maybe we should have a menu that allows the user to select such functions.
Ah well, nice ideas for future development :-)
*TODO list for a near future
-Switching from 800x600 VGA to 640x480 VGA
-Merging the gtk-miniiso in the main d-i tree: before this some bugs
reported by frans pop must be solved
-Packaging fonts in regular udebs rather than tarballs: help by font
mantainers is needed, has someone already contacted them?
-Switching to GTKDFB 2.8.3.
This will be tought, since many libraries (cairo, ..) have not yet been
packaged into udebs and preliminary testing on integration is still to come.
Anyway benefits will be many and GTKDFB 2.0.9, altough working, is very
updated and many advanced GTK features are missing/buggy
-Testing on archs different from i386
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