At 14:05 Uhr +0100 24.04.2005, David Chisnall wrote:
Perhaps we could provide a lightweight scripting language, with a UI
like Automator (or, at least, how I assume Automator works - I
haven't actually used it) for combining components, perhaps built on
StepTalk? `Applications' would be sets of components, perhaps
including some fairly specialised ones that probably won't be used
elsewhere, combined using a simple script.
This may be a neat feature, but I think it's an entirely separate
project from the main desktop. AFAIK, Automator currently consists of
an API specification that lets you create a simple GUI for each task
component an application wants to expose, which it can then display.
Most of this is done via AppleScript and AppleEvents. GNUstep could
probably do similarly using DO and StepTalk.
Remember, there already are a number of GNUstep applications that
use the traditional style. The easier we make it for them to add
Etoile features to their apps without having to rewrite them from the
ground up, the more likely it is they'll do so. Same goes for future
ports of Cocoa applications. If we require StepTalk to build a GUI
app from components, people are locked into GNUstep and StepTalk. But
if it's just a feature of a GNUstep application, you can choose the
language that fits your task. Java, ObjC, StepTalk, Python? No
problem.
So, if we can turn the component architecture of Etoile into a set
of APIs to be adopted by regular applications, and make the Etoile
desktop itself a set of a few apps based on these APIs, and designed
with those APIs in mind, we can get the best of both worlds. Happy
maintainers that will take at least the work for a minimal port to
Etoile, plus incremental updates to get neat features like workspace
support, Automator actions etc.
And we'd still have the option of writing an application whose sole
purpose it is to be an Automator action, or to glue together an app
from such small tools.
--
Cheers,
M. Uli Kusterer
------------------------------------------------------------
"The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..."
http://www.zathras.de
