-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This is probably going to sound lame to anyone who's seen certain other operating systems; but would it be absurd to package a program that can incorporate GNOME configuration applets for user preferences and administrative actions into customized consoles? For example, a user could put Theme, Screen Saver, and Desktop Background in, and then save a file that would load that configuration set in.
Along these lines I am thinking that the actual options offered would be communicated via XML, and the user interface used would actually draw them. The point of that particularly would be to allow third party configuration applets to drop in, where such configuration applets (like Synaptic Package Manager) could export an interface that would be useful to more than just GNOME, possibly drawn on a text console or in other toolkits. Existing applets would be converted into modules that would run as separate processes. The console.. Linux Control Console, LCC.. would start these modules as separate processes (like GIMP does) to isolate their security contexts (i.e. package manager from the UI and desktop config applets). Modules could be easily proxied, so administrative modules would fall under a second LCC process that proxied their requests to the first; this second one would be called using `gksu` to get root privileges, and then spawn all root-needing modules below it. The Preferences and Administration menus would be filled with entries that called LCC in a special mode to activate a single module, ditching the part of it that allowed loading other modules and saving the set to a file; in effect, their current UIs would be kept in tact. This would have three major effects overall. - The basic configuration and administration applets could be combined by skilled users; other users wouldn't care, they'd never see the LCC. - Configuration applets would become easier to write; their options would be largely XML, they would interact based on a protocol giving commands dictated by the XML, and there would be no UI coding. - Cross-DE work could be consolidated. A KDE or ncurses based LCC could be written, which could use the exact same modules and render using Qt or ncurses. Modules such as package managers or security configuration applets which don't tie themselves to GNOME or KDE would require no alteration to work. It's just an idea. - -- We will enslave their women, eat their children and rape their cattle! -- Bosc, Evil alien overlord from the fifth dimension -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iQIVAwUBRT2cqgs1xW0HCTEFAQJmBA//YL/H1N3dD43640kdcW7Wc8yXDw0EuU7A vIiYgPCmSV/AwuhsQ3Vlk54np/fcc17CEz78qrOAXtPd39vcosg+X5QmzF/iGoBx 2k59Zqy6rhU1tXTMZjABaQ2yYoAPCFkpKRMN+lCI3nrc64iwDzz/vV5J4JZn04cE o91doof5CedbSKDmldWzI9QUBWQ8kETAX+A6brgbgIdVVHSKOTNIOlUJ8NKyNnfe qzXBC9sgss1fCI5auCHhqvJ9CreE4AsZnAJB2CV5ske6T25N/yPV8jIu/3PIgk5Y Hosk4GHjrktc1wKmHfA4PAn3/3bILK+i6jm13zu/vblScphzszcqT8JwZXOH6nJY VgA/Bc/HuR/wRTf31HusBaOFVw7/IDzJPGXA9ahkskh4heJsRpdt1Cizx+HIJA6+ P4vbIWDX/Ikc7HXTtvDtz4nGZNUBfURd+gtJgcgGRtn1oF5Ol1dKzXA2pQE4Xzte 3ragXjxGt2Mtb3p8gnGH+JMrNSIIccZdVzwKU1qaCAhdJQHq2ujojBBmiNBQwPtJ Shazw/7a3/yl4xVvxGcYaSXMn0FZjPd0XUH+hNVguyJf2QaCqZYvBnSl9JH/wul1 JWbYaOgBQ6aUz1sQLbi4ouBXKf7emOdoxI5nP4lKkGO25ppCDWO0pqKn8QE0c2Gz Q6VbPQjCWyU= =8nwc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list