Re: ANN: GWorkspace 0.6.5

[Frederico Muñoz]

Hello,

On 2004-06-07 19:39:41 +0100 Enrico Sersale <enrico@imago.ro> wrote:

(snip)

>> Maybe a drawing of the current state and desired state would help. What do 
>> you think? It is better to think when you have diagrams in front of your 
>> eyes. Would it be possible to visualise current GWorkspace? Like: what are 
>> apps, what are bundles, what are frameworks and how they are connected 
>> together and how they copmmunicate.
> 
> Sure! And this is an other reason for which I've created many parts: I want 
> to document all. I'll write documentation for each part that can be 
> considered done. (and a diagram of all the relations between the various 
> elements)
> In the last four years, I've worked alone at GW, but I think that, with a 
> good documentation, even other people could be involved.
> GWorkspace is already full of parts that use bundles and that could, very 
> easyly, accept contributions and extensions from other people: the file 
> viewers are bundles, all the contents inspectors are bundles (Inspector can 
> also add on the fly content inspectors bundles sent as NSData throught DO), 
> the new Finder uses a bundle for each kind of search criteria, the FSNode 
> framework will use bundles to display virtually any kind of information in 
> the label of a icon or in a browser cell, etc..
> The only think I need is, probably, a volunteer to help me to put all the 
> stuff in a good English :-)


First please excuse me if my message would be more appropriate somewhere else 
in the thread but I've been reading the GNUstep mailing lists trough the 
archive for some years now and I've seldom send any email. I just enabled the 
sending of list messages to my account since it's the only way to correctly 
reply to the list.

I know that there is still space for improvement in GWorkspace & related 
applications, but I wouldn't like to let the opportunity pass without saying 
that for me the vast improvements that GW has been having for some time now 
drastically improved not only it's own usability but also GNUstep's usability. 
I use it as my only file manager and it is really a very well made piece of 
software. 

As far as the new Desktop.app and Dock goes, well, personally I have been using 
the new Dock exclusively since it appeared in CVS. I find it refreshing 
visually and really a step in the right direction. This doesn't mean that it's 
perfect: I second the several sugestions made, i.e. the recycler could stay at 
a fixed position and it should be able to raise the applications that are 
launched. Additionaly some mechanism to allow AppWrappers to send the 
appropriate messages would be very nice since it would allow seamless 
integration of AppWrapped applications in the Dock. But in the whole I do view 
this Dock as a total replacement to WM's dock, and the things that have to be 
added don't seem like showstoppers since they look like they are not very 
difficult to do. The appearance of the new Dock, while not strictly NeXTish, is 
elegant, sober and manages to get some points for eye-candy without trying to 
do so.

Desktop.app brought a particular thing that was essential as far as GNUstep as 
a Desktop Environment is concerned: the ability to mount/unmount removable 
media. The absence of this single-handedly removed the possibility of 
installing a GNUstep desktop in a computer that was meant to be used by someone 
that only needed the ability to write some simple text and copy it to a file. 
With the new support for removable media this is no longer an obstacle (I don't 
know if the NSopenPanel and NSSavePanel have been updated...).

Even here I have a suggestion: allow the volumes to be listed in the Finder 
alongside with the Desktop (e.g. "/Volumes").

All in all, and knowing that all the components in GW are being worked upon, I 
think that users whose first interaction with GNUstep is with GW, and that have 
GW properly configured (*), will enjoy the experience.


Best Regards,


Frederico Muñoz

(*) By "properly configured" I mean some very subjective things that I have 
made in order to make GW more appealing: I linked /Local, /System, etc, to the 
approriate location in $GNUSTEP_ROOT, put most files in / in .hidden, added a 
*lot* of .dir.tiff files, etc.