A quick $0.02: I have been using Gimmie on and off for quite some time now (on and off since its initial checkin) and have found it to be a significant step up in terms of a UI over the current Gnome default. The biggest issues have been with crashers (generally with new/fickle features, all of which have been addressed below in the list of features to be addressed/removed)
I would be interested to see a build without all these extras, and see what performance/the memory footprint are looking like, as currently long sessions (days to weeks) can see those grow. However, since we are talking about incorporating it and then _developing_ it for some time, I would be a strong supporter of such a move. I think that since most of its 'cool new features' have been mostly developed, and what would really need to be done is gritty testing/bug work, it might be hard to attract the development base we need to get it stable, but if we can mobilize the workforce and/or provide elegant/sane degradation/fallback to the original gnome-panel, I would be all for such a move. My quick, un-researched $0.02, Kevin Kubasik On 9/24/07, Alex Graveley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > The Gimmie applet has been around for some time. Gimmie is a tab-like > replacement for the main Panel menubar, providing logical access to > the concepts of the desktop[1]. > > For more information, see the Gimmie homepage at > http://beatniksoftware.com/gimmie. Gimmie is stored in GNOME SVN, and > uses GNOME Bugzilla for issue tracking. > > Many use it as a replacement for the default Panel menu, myself > included. I think many novel concepts exist in it's UI, and I find it > to be very usable and featured. > > Looking towards the future, Gimmie is designed to move towards the > Online-Desktop model, while preserving access to the features of the > existing desktop. This is a niche which none of the new Panel or > navigation menu alternatives (let alone other desktops) are pursuing, > and one which I consider pivotal if GNOME is to remain pertinent. > > So I'd like to gauge the interest in having the Gimmie applet included > as part of GNOME. Either as part of the main suite or in an add-on > suite. > > What's needed to make this happen? What concerns do people have? > > Issues that I see: > > * There has not been a new release since 0.2.7, in June. A new > release is brewing, and the Gimmie community is stepping up the > release engineering around a solid 0.3 release. > > * Lack of dedicated maintainer resources. Admittedly, I've been > somewhat lax in my duties due to time pressures. Luckily, several > volunteers have stepped up recently offering to take the reins here > for more reliable releasing. > > * There is an experimental standalone panel version of Gimmie. > This can be branched into a sub-project, or simply not installed by > default. I am *not* proposing to expose this panel alternative as > part of GNOME. There are many other interesting panel alternatives > which are seeing a lot of love. > > * Non-functional placeholders for future features should be removed > (Flickr, Google Office, Friendster integration). > > * GMail contact integration needs to be fixed or removed by default. > > * Ditto for Gaim/Pidgin online status setting. > > * The Tomboy note category may not be useful to include by default. > > * There are a few experimental UI features that should be removed > e.g. the timeline view. > > * Saved email attachments only supports Thunderbird's downloads.rdf > format. I don't know if this feature can be supported with Evolution, > and accordingly may need to be removed for now. > > * .desktop change monitoring has been disabled due to crashes in > the gmenu python bindings. This may have been solved recently, or may > require investigation into better alternatives. > > * Preferences and Administration capplets are merged into a single > Settings category. This can easily be split into separate categories > again, if people want to maintain compatibility with the existing > menubar. > > * The "system" tab is labeled according to the OS's name, e.g. > Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD. If this is contentious, we can rename it to > "Computer", "System", or "Gnome". > > * Different terms are used from the standard GNOME menubar: > Applications->Programs, Preferences/Administration -> Settings. > > * A few important crashers must be fixed[2]. See > http://www.beatniksoftware.com/gimmie/Releases. > > * Next-gen desktop systems are not yet used: Tracker/Beagle for > searching, Telepathy for IM contacts, mugshot daemon for web service > access. I would love to see integration with these in future Gimmie > releases, but they are not yet a standard part of GNOME. > > None of these are too bad, and all could see resolution given the > incentive of GNOME inclusion. That said, it's an ambitious goal to > have something like Gimmie included in the next desktop release, but I > think well worth it. > > Hoping for some inspired, civil debate... > > Thanks, > -Alex > > [1] From the homepage: > * Installed Programs > * Connected Devices > * CDs and DVDs > * Nearby networked computers > * Mounted network shares > * Printers > * System Preferences > * Administration Tools > * Bookmarked Folders > * Office Documents > * Tomboy Notes > * Audio Files > * Movies > * Downloaded Files (Firefox, Epiphany) > * Saved Email Attachments (Thunderbird) > * Instant Messaging Buddies (Gaim, Pidgin) > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > -- Cheers, Kevin Kubasik http://kubasik.net/blog _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
