On Tue, 2 Aug 2016, Matthew R. Trower wrote: > I care. I'd love to see some new features added to CDE - if nothing > else, to bring it up to speed with the rest of the world.
Cool! At least there are a few of us left. At my job, I support old operating systems (Tru64, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, and very old versions of each). Every one of them has had a CDE dist with it at one point. > For example, I think we really need proper support for multi-head > setups, and I'd love to see dtMail fully support IMAP. That would be excellent. Also a simple plugin architecture for shell scripts would be welcome. SSL support, I'm sure is another item that would be put to immediate use, but one can use 'stunnel' as workaround in the meantime. > DtLogin should (probably?) support system actions like shutdown and > reboot. Gosh, that seems like one I could even work at adding. I'm on chapter 3 of my Motif book! > Creation and assignment of types and actions could probably be > streamlined, or at least scripted. Yes! I love the idea of finding an easy way to add scripting or plugin APIs that allow for doing things that are painful in C, but easy in shell. It gives you even more quick portability, too, if care is given to testing the scripts. Right tool for the job and all that stuff. The "Awesome" window manager (https://awesome.naquadah.org/) has a Lua, API. That'd be slick, too. Lua is pretty easy to embed in C programs. However, I'm definitely one to keep the dependency list short, too. So, shell scripts are also nice in that you don't need "yet another dependency" on platforms that don't come with Lua, for example. > Creating entirely new applications may be an ambitious undertaking, but > I'd love to hear your ideas. Okay, I'll dump a few out here. Let me be clear that this is only a wishlist. I know it's a PITA to work for free. I've done enough of that to appreciate it as a force of drag. Also, excuse me if I touch on something that's already in progress or done. Wishlist only: Smallish stuff: * I'm all for enhancing portability and package-ability. If CDE was in the mainline pkgsrc, that'd be a dozen or so OS's supported lickety-split. I had to fight things a bit to get it going on NetBSD (not much, though, it was surprisingly easy compared to what I expected - thanks guys!). * Pre-package some sexier wallpaper. Keep the old ones, too! I'm a photographer (I've even done some pro work), and lots of geeks are. I'd be happy to donate rights to some high-pixel-count landscape shots from Colorado or macro shots also good for wallpaper. I know a lot of artists. I might be able to wrangle someone into some nice vector/raster backgrounds, too. Perhaps the same with sound. I could help there, too if anyone was interested. I've done some sound engineering, too (and so have a lot of other geeks, I know). * More rich sets of default icons. Swappable/themed sets are even better if the energy is there. * Add keybindings that are common on other window-managers. Make them easily switch-to-able. Pre-pack them as selectable defaults. This would probably be especially helpful to MS Windows users. For me, a set from Windowmaker would be fun. Big stuff: * IMAP support for dtmail, just like you said. * A "chat" client. Perhaps something based on libpurple but with a Motif front end. Maybe just start with IRC functionality and use a plugin API (libpurple? I dunno) to support more protocols. * Enhance the file browser. I'm not talking about eye candy so much as just more operational modes, more functionality, etc... I'm a big fan of Norton Commander clones. A Commander mode would absolutely rock. A split-pane OSX/NEXT style mode would also be great. I think Total Commander for Windows is one of the best file managers around. Kommander from KDE is also good. Spacial-style ala MacOS classic is also highly sought after by some folks. * Add SSL support to mail and anywhere else it seems appropriate. Also STARTTLS support is very nice. * Make the file browser support graphic thumbnails and selectable sizes. SVG icons would also be interesting and useful. * Multi-head support with an intuitive control panel. * Theme-ability which covers more elements in the desktop environment, not just colors (ie.. icon sets, relative sizes of widgets like the toolbar width, sounds etc..). * An "expert" GUI resource editor for all the various things that could go into the .dtwmrc file. * A Motif front end for Mplayer that obeys all the themes and such from CDE. * Implicit support for SSH and serial protocols in dtterm making it more like Terminal, Konsole, Putty, SecureCRT, etc.. My favorite huge-terminal-program features are Zmodem support and Expect-style basic scriptability. Sharing data files with SecureCRT is also helpful. * A smarter level of integration with Xscreensaver or Xlockmore. Ie... be able to use their screen hacks but perhaps with a more CDE-ish control panel. Thus, not having to get into the biz of making screen hacks, but taking advantage of what's already there and offering basic defaults if they don't have the dependencies. * Built-in support for VNC, ICA, or RDP. Perhaps just leverage things like x11vnc but build a control panel front end. Ala "Remote assistance" on other desktops. * Motif theme for OpenOffice so it looks more integrated. These ideas are crazy town and they are just dreams because they are so much to take on or have big implications for security or maintainability: * A Motif browser (could an alternate browser engine like Webkit or Gecko be used to make it easier?) * OpenGL support for eye-candy effects and such. * Integration with Samba so the file browser can browse network shares. Fish (ssh-fs) and AFP would also be incredible. * A small front end for "personal web sharing" ie.. /~public_html or "outbox" style. * A file browsing front end for uPNP. While I'm wishing how about a client also? * Support for mDNS for services and any of the useful parts of Apple's desktop rig that can be poached where it makes sense. * Bluetooth services control panel done up in Motif * Video conference tool ala IRIX's InPerson. * LDAP client for directory lookups and browsing, perhaps also integrated with dtmail. Things I'm not interested in: * DBUS or DCOP. Why do I need to run a daemon to be able to fire up my text editor? At least don't terminate if you can't find your mothership daemon. IMHO, REST or SOAP interfaces make more sense anyway if you must do this sort of thing. Heck, named pipes can do the same thing without the service daemon, too. * Pulseaudio. Hmm. I'm new here so I'll keep my reasons to myself unless folks are really interested. I do some audio-engineering (I'm an amature musician, and play a few instruments like a lot of geeks). I'll leave it at that for now. * Binary opaque configuration files. > The focus of the project thus far seems to have mainly been on fixing > bugs and polishing up the ports to behave properly on various platforms. That's still noble work that needs doing, I'm sure. Congrats on the successes you guys have had so far! > I think these are the major priority (perhaps those with more seniority > here can weigh in on this). There remains a lot to do on that front, and > people have but limited time. Don't I know it. Most of us have day jobs and that just saps all the energy out of a person, sometimes. > I've done some initial work on multi-head that at least makes it usable, > but am so bogged down with life concerns that I don't find much time to > work on my long list of concerns. Hey, that's great! I hope you get the time & energy to finish it and the other things on your list. > I suspect this is the case for most here. Still, as someone who uses CDE > daily, I definitely care. Cool. I too use CDE quite often (though I rotate through window managers about once a quarter - for the last decade and a half or so). I like changes in scenery since I'm nearly always sitting in front of a workstation screen. > Good luck, and welcome to the list! Thanks! Glad to be here. Sorry this was such a long novella to read. I'm just excited about the prospects of this project. -Swift ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ cdesktopenv-devel mailing list cdesktopenv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cdesktopenv-devel
