Re: [Suggestion] GNUstep-test for quality control

[Andreas Heppel]

Hi,
I've been following this discussion (and so already former ones on the topic 
of a 'GNUstep desktop') and here's my opinion.

On 2003-10-16 14:36:50 +0200 Philippe C.D. Robert <philippe.robert@gmx.net> 
wrote:

[snip]

> > But I thin we are making step forwards for example with GWorkspace. If we
> > get a good window manager and a preference application I think we are on the
> > good way. Put in some "usr" applications... and you are at a quite good
> > point I think.
>
> It is IMHO not enough to "have" some apps which use the GNUstep API and are 
> part of the GNUstep CVS. This approach will not bring back the unique 
> experience found in NEXTSTEP and its successors and thus will not come close 
> to what many of us expect from it, I am afraid.
>
> ...but then, what do I know, maybe there is really not much missing which 
> will glue together what is already here.
I think, that the 'glue' holding all those apps together and integrating them 
into a desktop are a window manager and a workspace application. The latter is 
already there (even if not yet complete) and working, but the former is more 
or less missing. There exists no (working) window manager, yet, which really 
integrates with GNUstep. WindowMaker at least resembles the look, but does not 
really integrate, apart from the fact, that I don't see progress in this 
project for quite a while now. It looks like WindowMaker is a dead end wrt 
GNUstep. And InterfaceWM? Well, it is probably meant to integrate with 
GNUstep, but currently it is far away from even being usable.
So, what we have is GWorkspace, which is quite nice, but without a supporting 
window manager cannot really take the part of integrating the GNUstep apps 
into a 'real' desktop system. To me it looks like we urgently need a window 
manager. Methinks, it is time that we put some (a lot of?) effort into 
bringing InterfaceWM to a state where it is really usable (even if not 
complete) and can serve (together with Workspace) as a supporting framework 
for all those apps and tools.

Cheers,
Andreas

--
Andreas Heppel

Mail: aheppel at web dot de
Home: http://www.andreasheppel.de

Check out Burn.app - the CD burning frontend for GNUstep
http://gsburn.sourceforge.net