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Core Developers Discuss The Future Of GNOME
Jon writes: "George Lebl and Maciej Stachowiak, GNOME core developers, recently attended the Australia Linux Hacker's conference, Linux.conf.au. Check out the article LinuxWorld Australia is running based on their talk at the conference. It looks at the future of GNOME and other interesting tidbits. Also, check out this link to see summaries of other talks - including Alan Cox's '
Classified Progress Report and Briefing.'" The GNOME folks indicate that Nautilus could be the default file manager as soon as next month :)
Now the issue is multimedia support - once again, Gnome will come up to speed somewhere in the two year lag range. Its interesting that I note that most uber-smart unix geeks I know are just throwing in the towel and running an SSH client from windows into their BSD boxes. Why? Because they're tired of seeing "plugin not suported" when they try to do anything interesting on the web.
Yes, using c for an object oriented coding is kind of f*cked up. That's why (at least I think that's why) the GNOME dudes are developing Inti, a c++ application development platform that has a gtk-based GUI toolkit that's supposed to make writing consistent GUI apps pretty easy. I suspect that the moment it gets real stable, it'll supplant a lot of the Gtk C coding being done right now.
I am really looking forward to stuff using the X Render extension (anyone have any examples of anyone using it? Docs on how to use them? I so want real transparent terminals...)...
The RENDER extension is definitely being used, by Qt. KDE's CVS version of Qt now includes patches to make it do font rendering. The great thing is that this is all at a very low level, so it's completely transparent to the application programmer. All of my KDE applications have well-kerned, well-hinted, fully anti-aliased proportional fonts. The same is possible with gtk+; in fact I'd heard that someone had it working at one point.
As far as docs, I don't believe there is much right now. There is an incomplete Xft manual page for the library dealing with the font stuff (basically renders fonts in truetype and feeds them to X using the render extension). There is also probably likely to be something at the render mailing list.
Real transparent terminals...as I understand it, that requires a seperate extension. Render creates the option of alpha blending, but it takes something else to do it on the window level, rather than on top of an opaque window.
With a nod to the existing reply, I'll add that if you must use an OO language, use the bindings. I for one use GtkAda all the time, and bindings exist for other OO languages as well.
> And the other thing is speed. Lord good gravy gnome is slow.
Speaking of GTK+ rather than GNOME per se,
- it is counterintuitive: I would expect to have local control over the theme, and
- it is inefficient: performance is horrible when you try to push all that graphics down the pipe.
IMO, the #1 priority for GTK+ (and for GNOME) should be to remodel their system on the way X behaves.--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Notice how "Organises my files" is not one of the things that people are excited about when it comes to (almost any) file manager. No, they get excited about the themes, or the HTML engine, or the integrated AIM client with full support for teledildonics.
Personally i am getting just a little fed up with all of these do-it-all applications. I want a file manager that manages my files, a web browser that browses the web, and an ftp client that sends and recieves files over FTP. I do not want them all in the same damn application!
Have software developers gone nuts? What happened to the Unix pholosophy of lots of small tools that can be pluged together? Why is it that as soon as the developers get hold of a GUI they go mental and start layering IPC protocols on top of each other, integrating everything into one huge application that does it all, and basically forget that these tools are supposed to be there to do a job, and do it well? I don't need and HTML engine in my file manager, I use a web browser for that. All the HTML component does is add bloat (Even if it's not loaded, the application still needs code to support it), and uses my memory. This seems to apply more to Open Source software than it does to commercial, although Microsoft is also guilty of this in many ways too.
Please, for Jebus' sake, can we get back to small, lightweight tools, and stop integrating everything?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Isn't that the filemanagers have some way to go, or that silly apps tell me KPACKAGE NEEDS TO BE RUN AS ROOT! rather than asking me for the password, or that one is more or less favoured by closed source developers, that Ximian installer force installs all its packages, or that one is more or less free than the other.
Its that they both ignore each other. Half my apps don't work properly. The standardized drag and drop doesn't work across in any distribution with the latest GNOME and KDE, dragging from Konqueror to the GNOME desktop doesn't work. Neither does any other cross app drag and drop.
* Drag and drop is broken
* I have 2 sets of mime types
* My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa
* When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
* KDE and GNOME don't even include apps from each other on their panels
* Childish KDE developers write a GNOME theme importer which calls GNOME `legacy' and childish Eazel developers make Eazel services showcase any app for any toolkit, as long as it isn't KDE and QT.
* QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why.
Thisn isn't competition. This is insanity, artifically partitioning all my apps. Neither desktop will win. No OS uses a single partition.
Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc. End users don't give a fuck about toolkits and never have. Why is the KDE team writing KPhotoSuite? Why shouldn't KWord work really well with the GIMP?
Windows uses more than one toolkit. It just does it well. For God's sake, stop partitioning my desktop. Write a combined style guide for GTK and QT based apps. Make sure both toolkits use the same theming engine, and have a similar range of widgets aviable.
And for God's sake, stop using your brilliant minds to hurt each other and combine them to actually make Linux a useable desktop.
I'll have hope the first time a Linux developer actually writes a software installer and doesn't call it `gnorpm'.
While I love GNOME's user interface (Up-From menus, auto-hide menus that don't hide just because a window pops up and wants the focus, customizeability, etc) I don't like how monstorous it is. I have a 750MHz Athlon with a 7200RPM Hard drive... GNOME only takes a couple seconds to startup on my system, but that's beside the point. It is a large download, it handles simple tasks the hard way, and it's not nearly as good as it should be.
As much as I like GNOME, it needs a fresh code-base that is simple and elegant. First get the panel working, then the icons, then the backgound, filemanager (a small.simple,easy filemanager like MacOS7's) and just some minor things! GNOME should be small tight code, it really doesn't need to do a tiny fraction of what it does. Everything is about having one program you want to run and needing 20 libraries to run it.
Mod me down for ranting if you must, but any desktop should feel like GNOME to a user, but it's code should do only what it needs to. A new GTK which has only what it needs, and everything should go right on top of that, no other middlemen, no other libraries should go into it. Small tight simple code... themes should be an afterthough, as should be everything else that is a nicety not a necessary feature. The GNOME trash can is a great example of how simple their desktop should work. There's an easy and simple way to do everything.
Many of the improvements are the result of user experiences with GNOME. "The application launch feedback program is designed to indicate that a program is in the process of being loaded," said Stachowiak. "We've had complaints about people clicking on the Netscape launcher 10 to 15 times before the program appears on the screen."
Well, if that's not taking user feedback to heart, I don't know what is. It takes a long time to load apps and users get impatient, so lets make a loading box to sooth them (instead of putting some work into making apps load faster).
Why does it take so damn long to load? What's going on that could possibly need 10-15 seconds? Come on, on a modern PC, that's enough time to transfer about 100 megs from a modern disk drive (or over 100 Mbit/sec ethernet), enough time to do an unimaginable number of computations, even in floating point. Only two types of things take time in the modern computing world:
- network latency, usually 20ms to 300ms
- software bloat, anywhere from 100ms to well beyond anyone's patience for software
It's refreshing to see that the gnome developers are keeping a keen eye on being lean-and-mean, NOT!Ok, maybe this message was a bit of a troll, but I'm still a bit pissed about having to upgrade the RAM on a machine where I installed Redhat 6.2. 64 megs of RAM and I was getting quite a bit of swapping running gnome with netscape, xmms, ssh, and several terminals. With this sort of attitude towards bloat and slowness, it sounds like gnome will continue the trend of software getting slower more rapidly than hardware getting faster, just like another OS & windowing environment vendor that we're all familiar with...
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I must have missed the part in the article in which the Gnome developers are 'dissin'' their own project. What I saw was a brief explanation on what was motivating improvements, and how the 1.4 was aimed at those improvements. Perhaps I am rising to a troll but as far as I can tell this was anything but an example of anyone dissin' anything.
.99p16 but I avoided X for a long time. My experience with gnome, X 4.02 (with Matrox acceleration) has made me a fast clean easy to use desktop. I doubt I will ever abandon command line, but maintaining multiple machines with X is a pleasure at this point.
The only thing I can think, is that the reader here prefers over aggrandized marketing lingo to what is generally self-effacing programmer attitude (in which we learn that programmers always say it is broken even if it isn't 'broken' so as to avoid expectations. as opposed to marketers who never say anything is broken but call bugs features.)
I personally have enjoyed gnome lately. The apps are functional and the toolkit seems to be making it easier for developers to produce some pretty professional looking apps. In combination with Debian (using apt-get) I have been able to keep up to date with gnome and easily added new apps as I heard of them. There is alot of work to go but there seems to be a lot of action. I have been continuously running Helix (Ximian) Gnome desktop for over a month and it is far more stable than any other gui I have ever used. Gimp-print outputs without flaw... And Gimp itself is a rock of stability. The Sawfish desktop is quick and very flexible. Infact running recent Gnome with nightly builds of mozilla, xemacs, eterm, gimp, gpilot, gphoto and xmms has been a pleasure.
Yes there are bugs, and I am an expert user (and thus can pretty much figure out just how I mangled everything, but given a month or two at this rate, and I think ya'll will be suprised.
I am really looking forward to stuff using the X Render extension (anyone have any examples of anyone using it? Docs on how to use them? I so want real transparent terminals...)...
As to Nautilus, well I am still a strong advocate of the command line where file management comes in. Still occasionally I call up the file manager... Certainly not the worst I have seen. Nautilus seems nice looking, and I guess it will appease folks who don't understand cp and mv, but bash with filename completion means I move damned fast when I want a file.
Anyhow,
I am not a 'normal' user with experience since Linux
d
I haven't used Windows in over two years. Back when I did I distinctly remember that MFC and OWL (I don't know what VCL is) had different File Save dialogs. The standard toolbar icons were different. etc...
.desktop and .directory files? What about the new WM specs? What about XML emerging as a standard file format? And more that I can remember off the top of my head. And more in the works.
KDE and GNOME are voluntary projects. The people who work on them are volunteers. You can't fire them. And you are not their boss to tell them what the can or cannot do. The last thing freenix needs is a UI Police, arbitrarily setting standards and confiscating noncompliant CVS trees. That kind of thinking is antithetical to Free Software. This is a Free Market of Software. It's Laissez Faire. It's radical libertarianism that takes great pride in tar and feathering any who would set down rules. There are standards in this world, many standards,. And quite a few of them compete with each other. Just like in the real world. If you don't like this chaotic situation, and would prefer a regimented world where everyone does what they're told, then stick with Windows.
That said, the solution to your problem is easy, as long as you keep the fundamental volunteerism of Free Source in mind. If you want the KDE menu to be a part of the GNOME menu, and vice versa, go do it yourself! Or find someone who can and convince them to do it for you.
This isn't Windows. Don't expect it to be.
All I see is a standardized drag and drop that's been bandied about for a couple of years and doesn't work consistently. And symlinks in the menus.
Huh? What about standardization of
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Oh, I definitely prefer my houses to be built out of atoms. But I also prefer them to be prepackaged into objects, instead of having to install them one by one.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The problem with copy constructors/casting constructors is that you don't even know they are being called. If I use your library, and I make an assignment, I'd actually have to look at your code to see if a function call was made. If I pass something as an argument, again, I'd have to look at the code to see if a cast constructor was invoked. That is a big, big problem.
Engineering and the Ultimate
This is not true. A remote app is running on the remote computer. It has no access to your system for security reasons. Instead of being a client to the LOCAL X server, it is a client of the REMOTE X server. It does not have any access to your filesystem, and doesn't even know what your username is on your local box. It certainly would look nice, but its just not possible.
At my work, we use NFS-shared home directories, so when I run apps on other boxen, they do show up with my theme. Obviously, this is not the case with root, which is local to each machine.
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Last I looked and tried GTK with Drag and Drop, it was nightmare. Unless you are a gtk/gnome monger, forget it.
And the other thing is speed. Lord good gravy gnome is slow. Its bloat with fudge added in. Waiting for hardware to get faster is not a way to make your software improve, efficiency wise.
---
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
This is either a troll, or an emotional outburst devoid of any rationality. I'll assume the latter.
...
I have 2 sets of mime types
My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa
This sort of interoperability is being worked on even now as we speak. Don't expect overnight perfection. If you look at the history of KDE and GNOME, you'll find that the developers desire this compatibility and have been slowly but surely implementing it.
When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
It's one thing for the main root menus of the respective desktops to recognize the menus of the other, and display them. I expect this interoperability very soon. But you're talking about *panels* here. Switching between panels is going to be a rare occurance. And the process of adding an item to a panel takes approximately 8.5 seconds.
QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why.
Plenty of reason why, if you would just use your head. Both of these toolkits are distinct from each other. They are developed by distinct groups of people. And their theming engines have distinct goals. QT themes are more powerful than GTK themes in some ways, and GTK themes are more powerful than Qt themes in others. I for one do not want a theme engine based on the lowest common denominator.
Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc.
Apples and oranges. My KDE menu most certainly does NOT distinguish between Motif, Qt, Fox, FLTK and GTK applications. KDE and GNOME are desktops, they are not widget toolkits. To make the proper analogy, imagine a Windows user clicking the main menu to reveal "Windows applications", "DOS applications", "BeOS applications", "Mac applications",
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Just reminding people (probably dropped off the /. front page by now) there's another article about this great conference here.
Congrats Aussies, who knew we could put on such a great conference?
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I know KDE and GNOME are mostly volunteer projects, even ifn the majority of the core developers are being paid for their work. I'm not going to fire them, or flaming them, I'm providing feedback into what I think is a serious issue irn order to to achieve their stated goal of an easy to use Linux desktop.
Ah, the typical Slashdot `DIY' response. I can't do it myself. Nor do I have any intention of doing so. If Linux is to ever be accepted by mom and pop, which Eazel, Ximian, the GNOME and KDE foudnations / leugues, The Kompany, etc. all set out to to do, they will have to accept the plain reality of life that mom and pop don't know C and never will.
Being a little more educated than mom and pop, I still contribute by doing documentation for various projects. But no, I won't be helping GNOME or KDE beyond giving feedback in the near future, as I don't gave the time.
Or find someone who can and convince them to do it for you
Um, what do do you think this is?
Firstly, you haven't used Windows in more than 2 years if the common dialogues look different in VCL apps.
The last thing freenix needs is a UI Police, arbitrarily setting standards and confiscating noncompliant CVS trees.
Um, no. This is what destroyed closed source Unix, and pretty much everyone acknowledges this is what will destroy just about everything else. Chaos is not a part of Free software development. We have CVS bringing order to revisioning, we have the LSB bringing standards to distriobutions, and we have the FHS bringing standards to file locations.
That kind of thinking is antithetical to Free Software. This is a Free Market of Software. It's Laissez Faire. It's radical libertarianism that
takes great pride in tar and feathering any who would set down rules.
No, they don't. They get on ther mailing list for the standard amnd flame away, giving their input into the standard, so we can settle on something.
There are standards in this world, many standards,. And quite a few of them compete with each other. Just like in the real world.
Sorry, but its plaionly clear lack of consistent UIs hurt the free desktops more than their competition with each other enhances it. Both KDE and GNOME, and QT / GTK, will both exist. If anything, I'm encouraging the competition - for both players to realize they won't win out over each other, and the must accept the fact people won't always use their respective widget sets. I'm not saying the competition must stop, I'm sayign the current way of competing, which hard the UI experience and halves a users avliable apps, is hurting Linux as a desktop.
If you don't like this chaotic situation, and would prefer a regimented world where everyone does what they're told, then stick with Windows.
Er, no. I wouldn't prefer a regimented world. I'd prefer standards theres a difference. And as for sticking with Windows? Fuck you.
Uh, dude, this is 2001 - those articles are from 1999, and so are like 13 and 17 months old, respectively ...
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
Two things:
1) The HTML engine isn't in your file manager - it calls out to mozilla
2) Most of the components are separated
3) Yes, most developers went nuts a long time ago
4) Nautilus looks like it will do a great job of managing files. I especially like the "tag" concept - you can tag files with various markings, and then search by those markings - very nice.
Integration is good and bad. We'll see how well it works.
Engineering and the Ultimate
This is either a troll, or an emotional outburst devoid of any rationality. I'll assume the latter.
...
Sorry. I've spent a week talking with Eazel employees and KDE developers at the conference and the outlook so far seems pretty bleak.
"I have 2 sets of mime types
My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa"
This sort of interoperability is being worked on even now as we speak. Don't expect overnight perfection.
Really? According to Marciej and George, who I asked personally about this item at their talk at Linux.conf.au, while the mime types issue *may* be being worked on some time in the future, the Panel applet interoperability is something we *might* expect for GNOME 2, but not something the GNOME team are really working on.
If you look at the history of KDE and GNOME, you'll find that the developers desire this compatibility and have been slowly but surely implementing it.
Really? All I see is a standardized drag and drop that's been bandied about for a couple of years and doesn't work consistently. And symlinks in the menus.
"When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
It's one thing for the main root menus of the respective desktops to recognize the menus of the other, and display them. I expect this interoperability very soon.
Again, the KDE and GNOME developers I asked about these things generally put it on the very bottom of their things to do list.
But you're talking about *panels* here. Switching between panels is going to be a rare occurance. And the process of adding an item to a panel takes approximately 8.5 seconds.
I meant menus. Sorry.
"QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why."
Plenty of reason why, if you would just use your head.
But I won't `use my head', I refuse to, because neither will any end user. End users don't give a damn about toolkits. They just want to know why they have to learn to save files in Gimp and how to save files in Kword, because they're `different'.
Both of these toolkits are distinct from each other. They are developed by distinct groups of people.
Really? So are MFC and VCL. They just work together seamlessly...
And their theming engines have distinct goals. QT themes are more powerful than GTK themes in some ways, and GTK themes are more powerful than Qt themes in others.
Then take the best bits and combine them. Sorry, any inherent powerfulness in themes [not the biggest demand from most end users] should be much less on a UI developers list of priorities than consistency of user interface. AFAIK all non-Unix based User Interface engineers acknowledge this, with guides to UI consistency available for MacOS, Windows, and Be.
I for one do not want a theme engine based on the lowest common denominator.
Well, I'm sorrry, every other UI designer does, and useability testing reveals consistency works.
"Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc."
Apples and oranges. My KDE menu most certainly does NOT distinguish between Motif, Qt, Fox, FLTK and GTK applications. KDE and GNOME are desktops , they are not widget toolkits.
There are KDE and GNOME specific widgets, but I was talking about QT and GTK [without stating it, I thought it would be obvious].
To make the proper analogy, imagine a Windows user clicking the main menu to reveal "Windows applications", "DOS applications", "BeOS applications", "Mac applications",
Um, no. If I was a troll, I would say something a little more blunt here. But I won't. Those QT, GTK, and Motif apps are alll native Linux binaries. I think it is you who is comparing apples and oranges. I love Linux, and use it as my primary platform. But if we never acknowledge its deficiencies, it won't improve.
I think you have your heart in the right place by defending a good OS against criticism. But it is due criticism based on widely accepted wisdom of UI design which if heeded will improve the platform, IMHO.
every month? or every 6 months?
Just what I needed...
A file manager that plays mp3's, browses the web, zooms in, displays the actual text of files within the icon, contains the nuclear launch codes, has support for themes, is very configurable....
HEY!!! Did that just say what I think I said? Yup, I guess these open source blokes have finaly gone a bit too far with this "World Domination" thing.
47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)
"...all the needs of the real world"
:-)
I guess those people expect a working raid subsystem (one that actually works after rebooting) must be living in some kind of alternate reality
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
On behalf of desideria's family, I would like to announce some sad news. It appears that several minutes ago he had a stroke; the result of something the doctors called an "oxymoronic inquiry stack overflow failure". We aren't entirely sure what that means, but they said shock therapy might help. We'll keep you posted.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Narrator: "In their ongoing battle to slashdot sites out of existance, CmdrTaco and his minions, Jamie and Timothy find themselves in a dire predicament."
CT: "That linux.com.au site seems to be holding up very well. Any ideas men?" Jamie: "This business is getting harder and harder. How can we see our power manifested unless we can slashdot some sites. Don't they know who they are dealing with?"
CT: "Obviously not. Our only solution is to post the link again." Timothy: "Wait commander, won't the hordes of lemmings who read the page more than once a day realize that you posted the same story twice? They won't beleive it."
CT: "You're right, a bit too obvious. Why don't YOU post the story."
Jamie: "Excellent idea, then, when they are slashdoted, I can post a story claiming they were CENSORED."
Narrator: "Meanwhile, far from the geek compound in homes and NOC's across the world, geeks and wannabe geeks experience a strong sense of deja-vu, and wonder at the effects gallons of Jolt has injested while sitting a climate controlled room. The ones who realize what is going on on the other hand are a bit quicker in the future to minimize slashdot when their PHB's walk by."
I guess if the good discussion has already happened, we should just have some fun.
I'm mainly a KDE user but use Gnome apps sometimes. One thing that really annoys me about Gnome is how they clutter a lot of hidden directories in your home directory. Contrast this with KDE which has a .kde directory and a .kderc file. I don't see why a better hierarchy can't be setup in Gnome also so my home directory stays pretty clean. The reason it is annoying is that if my enable "view hidden files" in the home directory, the config files for a bazillion gnome apps make it hard to browse through.
This is very true. Where I work, we switched from a text-based system to a GUI system, and EVERYTHING SLOWED DOWN. Our customer service people HATED it. It took infinitely longer to point and click than to just type. These aren't computer specialist, these are regular customer service/order entry people. They are just trying to enter orders, and with point and click it took forever. I'm not trying to knock off GUIs altogether (they work well for many things), but it is true that not everything requires one, and they don't necessarily make things easier.
Engineering and the Ultimate