On 11/1/07, The Rasterman Carsten Haitzler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:09:17 -0400 "Hisham Mardam Bey" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled: > > > Hello gang, > > > > I'm sure some of you have (passively) read some of the discussions > > that are occurring on #edevelop from time to time regarding the > > direction this project is taking. I am mainly talking about E17, the > > window manager, and not the entire EFL. > > > > The main discussion was centered about how we're developing E17 and > > where its going. We now have two places where we keep TODO items and > > bugs, the TODO file in apps/e, and bugzilla. The way things are going, > > we have several "open" features in E17 that are partially done, some > > major, some minor. Among those features are EFM, and the First Time > > Run Wizard (FTRW). > > i think i did warn people that if this is moved to bugzilla i am certain i > will > probably not read it - having a web browser up consuming half my screen and a > web interface to trawl through painfully just to check what people have filed > is > a sure way to make me avoid it. bugzilla is painful. compared to the compact > simplicity of a TODO file in CVS - it's an abomination (from a developers > point > of view). a lot of you may just love the web, and web ui's, and sit and drool > over your gmail web page etc. etc. - but i do not. i find it royally painful. > so as i said - the result is me not reading the bug reports/feature requests. > > > EFM was supposed to be a simple file selector, it then grew into a > > actually no - it was meant to be BOTH a file selector back-end AND a simple > filemanager. there is no point making 2 of them separate. they do the same > thing. list files.
Granted, but if the file manager functionality is going to take a lot of time to complete we should just put it on hold and work on the bugs in the TODO. > > file manager, it then started getting custom directory and window > > configuration abilities, and then grew so big it needed its own > > config has been there from day 0 so it can look like a list (used int he file > selector) or icons (desktop bg/fwin views). config is there as simple twiddle > knobs for icon size and more. > > > process. As it stands, none of its features are 100% complete and > > no - the process was there to split file IO out ot a slave so the WM doesn't > hang doing file IO to slow file systems (eg AFS, a CF/SD card plugged in via a > USB 1 card reader etc.). i actually did this because of slowness in the file > selector - not the file manager. it has a bonus of making the file manager > better too. > > > almost without bugs, except the file selector. The file selector is a > > core part of E17 (for obvious reasons), but the file manager is really > > not. I would classify it as a nice to have feature, along with desktop > > icons, but its nothing major that can prevent a release from > > happening. > > there's a bunch of things to finish off with the fm - but it's not a huge > amount of work to finish ti to simple usability. it's almost there. just the > actual file operations need fixing to work properly in all cases and report > errors properly. that's about all that's really left to do here (other than > initial setup of Desktop so u have some links to places like your homedir). i > wanted to add links to the ~/.e/e/themes, backgrounds etc. dirs for trivial > DND > of downloaded items etc. the FM allows that and it's ALMOST there. > > > The FTRW is a useful feature to have that has also been started and > > the wizard core is pretty much done - i paused to go fix the default theme ans > i frankly was disgusted with the look of the wizard and couldn't continue > until > i fixed things. i wanted to get that settled and come back. i want to get the > first few pages done that demonstrate how to do most things - then the rest > can > be filled in as needed. what pages are to be done is listed in the wizard - > but > we can make it more minimal to save time. > > > has not seen completion yet. It was always on the TODO, but it sprung > > out of no where at a certain point in time during the EFM development > > cycle. Although its a nice and very useful feature, and I think it > > would be a good idea to have it available when we have a release, its > > taken development time from EFM and other incomplete features in E, > > and is currently not finished. Yet another incomplete and relatively > > big feature. > > it is really just these 2 big ones with smaller cleanups that need doing - tho > default theme cleanup is not a small task BTW - i'm commenting the .edc > heavily. > I'm not criticizing how these things are designed or saying they are "bad" or extra features. I am just saying that as it stands, they need a good amount of work and have the tendency to grow. We should say that we want to make them do a, b, and c, and freeze anything else. > > Some other items in the TODO are considered medium sized tasks, and > > the majority can be considered small tasks. I don't know about the > > state of things in bugzilla, but we can assume the same as with the > > TODO. > > lots of small tasks too - that will sink a lot of time. a lot of these can > just > be done in parallel anyway. > > > So the main question I have for everyone is, what now? We're writing > > code, time is passing, and we're not closing (or barely closing) any > > of the items on the TODO. New features that are not always planned > > make their way every now and then, and we're never substantially > > closer to a release or a release candidate. What do you folks propose > > we do to handle this problem? Should we freeze the addition of new > > items to E17 (similar to the freeze done a while back) and concentrate > > on closing all the TODO items and the bugs? Whatever decision we make, > > we need to do something about the way E17 is being developed, and the > > pace at which it is being developed at. > > the problem is the pace. there are lots of TODO items - most not being done. > in > doing efm and wizard - i am trying to knock of some of the big fat items and > get them started/going/ to a state of relative health. i agree we need to > knuckle down on those. the wizard core *i think) is done. its' a matter of > pages to do the setup. we can make it simple - but we do need it. we have > enough problems with users asking about empty/blank app menus and other things > that we need to fix in code on setup (i.e. - find all the xdg menus and ask > user which one they want etc.). So I guess the next move is to *try* and organize this mess and come up with a rough schedule for things. I know we dont usually do this kind of thing, but I firmly believe that if we dont set a schedule, nothing is ever going to be done anytime soon. -- Hisham Mardam Bey http://hisham.cc/ +1-514-713-9312 Codito Ergo Sum (I Code Therefore I Am) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ enlightenment-devel mailing list enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel
