Re: GNUstep and the desktop

[Fred Kiefer]

Alexander Malmberg wrote:
> And, more practically:
>
> The interface will, at first, be the "desktop parts" of
> OPENSTEP/OpenStep. Working through -gui to implement desktop bundle
> loading and clean "plugging in" will show which parts, and this will be
> clearly documented. It would include large parts of NSWorkspace, parts
> of NSApplication, and NSSound.
>
> Extensions will likely be necessary, but not until things have
> stabilized. As a guideline, I'd say that an extension should be
> implemented in two desktop bundles and used in two apps before it's
> "formalized" in GNUstep-gui's interface.
>
> There'll be a bunch of work necessary in -gui. Mostly rearranging the
> -gui so that a bundle can cleanly plug in an implementation (ie. turning
> some classes into class clusters, or adding "internal" classes for
> desktop bundles to override and using them in the public classes). This
> will also involve moving some code out of -gui (eg. gsnd; some (most?)
> existing desktop environments already have some sound system).

I can almost fully support your practical proposals, which are not to 
far away from GNUsteps current implementation:

NSWorkspace already delegates most of its operations to a well defined 
interface for a workspace application. Still there a few more methods 
that need implementation and are best left to an external application.
NSSound is rather similar, it interfaces with a sound deamon, all we 
have to do, is to move this deamon out of GUI to a separate module. But 
we will still need to provide this deamon in the future.
As for NSApplication, I am not sure which interfaces you are refering 
to. The only methods, that spring to my mind are unhideAllApplications: 
and hideOtherApplications:, both of which could be implemented via the 
service provider and its connection to all other GNUstep applications.