Re: GNOME 2.2 pref. dialogs getting too dumbed down?

[Sven Luther <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 12:45:29AM +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Sven Luther">
> 
> > > > Well the problem with all this gnome 2 stuff is that they did the
> > > > remove most prefs correctly, but often forgot the do it right by
> > > > default part.
> > > 
> > > Without specifics, I can't help you.
> > 
> > Its just a general impression, but then mostly conveyed by galeon2
> 
> Note that Galeon 2 is far from release-quality in many ways, and does not
> have a strong maintainer or team behind it.

BTW, both galeon and galeon-snapshot keep crashing on me these days, one
culprit was the (closed source) flash plugin, which i removed, but there
still are site which crash galeon/galeon-snapshot.

> > i think and the fact that the solution to all the configuration problems
> > is go to gconf-editor and to this or that obscure thing, which is a poor
> > excuse to not having correct dialogs.
> 
> If a particular preference is not appropriate for inclusion in the user
> interface, but is felt to be useful to more technical users, it will remain
> available in GConf. There is nothing wrong with that, assuming agreement
> with the 'fresh vision' for GNOME usability.

Well, the wrong with that is that you force us to use gconf, which is
far from convivial. Also, i guess the other wrong thing behind this is
the multitude of places you can configure an app now. the 'do it right'
way would have been to have an button in the app preferences which opens
gconf with only the apps relevant options or so.

> If you want to have a TweakUI-like control panel for obscure/advanced prefs,
> contribute to "CoG" (which needs a lot of love) or write your own. This is
> the 'crackpipe' idea that has been joked about many times on the various
> GNOME lists.

Yes,

> > Also, there is this ugly problem about the background and fonts that is
> > not coherent between gdm and gnome. Try putting the same background in
> > gnome and gdm, and you will see it revert to thestandard background
> > during gnome2 startup.
> 
> Sure, if you think that's a bug, then it's a bug. It certainly doesn't help

It is just anoying, but i think it is not only the background, the fonts
also seem to change quickly from some ugly default to the choosen fonts
at gnome startup. This is ugly, but no more. Also, how do you change
fonts in gdm2 ?

> us to be redrawing the background all the time (see problems between
> Nautilus and gnome-session with regards to this).

Notice that in gnome 1 it was possible, sure, you had to set the
background in 3 places (control-center, nautilus and gdm), now you
change it in 2 places, (control-center and gdm) which is good since it
simplifies configuration, but gnome 2 forgot to do it right.

> > > Dunno, Galeon 2 is basically dead. A few people have been working on the
> > > 'crackpipe' idea, but generally doing a pretty ugly job of it.
> > 
> > :(((
> > 
> > So the developpment team split up and died then ? 
> 
> Not really (read the mailing list for yourself - don't trust the musings of
> an observer completely), but there's not much happening, and no one has
> taken strong leadership of the project.

Yes, i followed the list some time ago, not recently though.

Friendly,

Sven Luther