Re: app wrappers and gworkspace

[Alex Perez]

> "Johnathon Shipley" writes:
> "Raffael Herzog" <herzog-lists@raffael.ch> writes:
> 
> 
> > I've just included some very rudimentary support for loading .desktop
> > files, but it's far from complete and I didn't manage yet to tell
> > GNUstep to save it as .app even though it's been loaded from a
> > .desktop file (the Cocoa docs state that setting NSRole=Viewer for
> > .desktop files should do the job, but gnustep-gui doesn't seem to
> > honour this).
> >
> > By StepTalk-enabling GSWrapper this could be made scriptable so that
> > you  just need to run a script to get a bunch of wrappers. Or, maybe,
> > I'll  simply include it in GSWrapper.
> >
> 
> 1) Can the 'virtual' gnustep apps created be kept in sync with the
>    distro's package system (/usr/share/applications/*.dektop) so that if
>    the user adds or removes a package the wrappers will automatically
>    adjust to the new situation?  Could this step of GNUstep-ising
I think GWorkspace has an fswatcher framework that could monitor that 
directory (and subdirectories), and notify a running app/daemon that its' 
contents have changed, which could be scripted to automagically create new 
.app bundles. 
>    existing applications be done virtually when GNUstep firsts loads?  I
>    really don't see the need for 'wrappers' for most of the system - but
>    useful for user customisations in ~/GNUstep perhaps (see my last
>    point).  Could you explain why app-wrappers are actually needed?
Ultimately, for GNUstep apps they wouldn't be.  This is why I think 
ultimately, the better solution is to have GWorkspace (maybe via an 
NSWorkspace category/extension or something) know how to handle .desktop 
files.
 > 
> 2) Can wrappers for apps that don't exist be ignored so that users are
>    not presented with unachievable options: e.g. opening files with
>    non-existant apps, as currently happens?  Perhaps this issue goes
>    away if app-wrappers aren't pre-configured.  The interface must
>    provide only reasonable choices if you want users to come on board.
I wasn't under the impression that the appwrappers were pre-installed. Are 
they? If so, that's bad and it should simply stop.

> 
> 3) Is there a way with the app-wrappers system for users to make their
>    own customisations in their home directory?  I can think of uses for
>    this, but the one time I tried to do this it didn't work.
I can't. What type of uses can you think of?

Cheers,
Alex Perez