This is very sad. I'm a great fun of this applet too and surely i'm going to
miss it. Yet as a developer myself I understand the words of Sebastian
Pölsterl, 'cause I have a few project on my own that i keep maintaining in
my spare time and I surely need some help from other guys.

Not a long time ago I've tried to develop a new plugin for deskbar-applat
that would've allowed to search for packages and files with aptitude and
apt-file, but this project of mina has been suddenly dismissed due to lack
of time. One day maybe I can consider the possibility of contributing to
deskbar-applet, who knows...

It occured to me though that the project gnome-do has a few similar
capabilities. By the way I've found hard to switch from deskbar-applet to
gnome-do and actually i'm still using deskbar-applet.

Well...all of this just to let you know that you are not alone. I'm gonna
miss deskbar-applet too ;)

Cheers

Gab.

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Sebastian Pölsterl <[email protected]> wrote:

> Am 01.07.2011 22:29, schrieb John Accoun:
> > Hey all.
> Hi John,
>
> > Just like Addadi, I'm another happy deskbar-applet user that would like
> to
> > keep using it.
> >
> > I don't know what the real purpose of this email is besides sharing my
> > opinion, but here it goes anyway...
> >
> > I've been using gnome for many years and the deskbar applet for maybe 3
> > years or so. Deskbar applet and tomboy notes are the two pieces of
> software
> > I use the most on my personal computer.
> > The recent developments in gnome made me take the decision of changing my
> > desktop environment. The reason why I haven't move to openbox yet is the
> > deskbar applet. There are many launchers out there, personally I like
> kupfer
> > and gmrun too, but both of them are in my opinion inferior to the deskbar
> > applet, no offense to the good people developing and maintaining them.
> >
> > I find all this rather sad. Gnome is the result of the hard work of many
> > people, it shines as a light/simple yet powerful/efficient desktop
> > environment and now because of the current eye candy trends that legacy
> is
> > going to be trashed.
> >
> I agree with you that dropping applets from gnome-shell was not a good
> idea. I complained in the past, but to no avail. The fact is that
> apparently an applet-like infrastructure is not longer wanted in GNOME3.
>
> > [...]
> > I think this project could be perfectly saved and mophed into a stand
> alone
> > application instead of a panel applet. I am a software developer myself
> > myself, but my knowledge on free desktop technologies is limited. I
> actually
> > dug a bit into them a while ago and found myself in an unpleasant swamp
> of
> > undocumented libraries and standards. So I unfortunately I don't have
> what
> > it takes to maintain this project.
> >
> Actually, you can use as a standalone application for quite some time,
> it isn't obvious though. Start deskbar-applet from the command line with
> the "-w" option will bring up a regular window.
>
> Unfortunately, just removing the applet related parts won't do it. You
> would have to port quite some code to make it GNOME3-ready. This at
> least includes porting from pygtk2 (GTK2) to pygobject (GTK3) and from
> gconf to dconf. Those tasks will take a considerable amount of time to
> complete.
>
> > I also noticed that most of the people that maintains software that is
> > tightly integrated with gnome, either works or has worked as a developer
> of
> > applications for gnome.
> > For an outsider, this feels like it's some kind of a secret society, and
> > honestly, I myself lack the patience to walk whatever path to get into
> such
> > circles.
> > While deskbar has proper documentation for plugin developers, the docs
> that
> > would provide one the necessary skills to write deskbar applet itself are
> > nowhere to be seen.
> >
> Keep in mind that many developers maintain their applications in their
> free time, including myself. Therefore, they prefer to write actual code
> instead of writing documentation. Getting to know the internals of a
> project is never easy, but I'd be happy to help anybody who is serious
> about maintaining deskbar-applet in the future.
>
> > Sorry if this was a long email. It may be my farewell to deskbar applet.
> > To all those who contributed to this great little tool, my sincere
> > gratitude.
> > So long deskbar applet.
> >
> Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Unfortunately, I
> don't think the situation will change until someone else is stepping up
> to lead the project in new directions. I myself moved on by now and
> accepted that fact that deskbar-applet's time expired.
>
> --
> Greetings,
> Sebastian Pölsterl
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> deskbar-applet-list mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/deskbar-applet-list
>
>


-- 
*"Egli è scritto in lingua matematica, e i caratteri son triangoli, cerchi,
ed altre figure
geometriche, senza i quali mezzi è impossibile a intenderne umanamente
parola;
senza questi è un aggirarsi vanamente per un oscuro laberinto."*

**
*-- *G. Galilei*, Il saggiatore.*
**
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