On Sat, Oct 09, 2010 at 09:44:43PM +0000, Chris Morley wrote:
> 
> Hi Chris.
> 
> I think Pavel's changes are great.
> Embedding webcams as a alignment tool is a great feature in it's self.
> 
> I think being able to change Touchy's display other then adding tabs is a big 
> plus.
> I don't understand what you mean by making future updates difficult.
> How does it make it difficult?

I spelled out some of my concerns in a previous mail to the list.
Here is a link to it again:

http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg03420.html

In addition to my concerns there, the problem with updating is simple
to explain.  When someone has a custom glade file in their
configuration directory, and changes to the touchy python assume
changes in the glade, their configuration will break.  They will have
to redo their changes in glade, starting with a fresh glade file,
every time the distributed glade file changes.

The python source and the glade file need to progress in lock-step to
work.  Maintaining this and making the user do the equivalent of a
manual merge of the two divergent glade files whenever we want to add
any functionality to touchy is a heavy burden to put on the user and
the poor devels trying to support him.

It will lead to us being hesitant to improve touchy for fear of
breaking everyone's configs.  It will also lead to the affected users
being hesitant to incorporate bug fix or new feature releases.

> I might add that your command: 
> xterm -into {XID} -rv -fn
> ...
> Where loading a gladefile modifying it then saving it is more
> user friendly.

It's a cute trick that shows how flexible the scheme is.  In a more
typical case, the command line would be one that makes a vcp panel.
It is no more complicated than a loadusr line in a hal file is.

Glade files are fragile because of their interdependence with the rest
of the source code regarding things like widget names.  I think you
greatly overestimate the extent to which modifying a screen (without
breaking it) in glade is easy and user-friendly.  I know you're an
experienced user of glade.

> Why not have both options? embedding and custom glade files?

Because I think the problems the custom diverging glade file scheme
will cause are onerous and will be a pain in the neck for users and
those supporting them (especially me).

Pavel's changes cause EXACTLY NONE of these problems that worry me.
His changes give almost as much flexibility without causing the
fragility and merge problems.

Chris

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