Re: metacity, vte

[Rui Miguel Seabra <rms 1407 org>]

On Sun, Sep 22, 2002 at 02:05:58PM -0400, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> I agree that the average user shouldn't be asked to pick a WM.  That is
> a horrible way to "Make computing easy."

Granted. A default value is good (make that essential) for the begginer.

> I still disagree on the capplet, however, if only because users are in
> general idiots, a lot of them are going to end up changing to Sawfish or
> whatnot without having any clue what they're "playing with" and breaking
> their setup, and so on.

Well, a lot of people [1] do dumb things that bite them in the ass!
That does not mean we should put diapers and iron-shirts on everyone.

The kind of users who are like that, don't even grasp that they can make
their desktop different, so this is a moot disagreement since they will
not change _anything_ at all on 99.99% of the cases. Besides, I think
that such a capplet

> I would maintain that if you are an advanced enough user to configure
> and use Sawfish, even tho it will not be integrated into GNOME the way
> Metacity should (and hopefully will) be, you are also advanced enough to
> change your WM without using a capplet.

*sigh* I long for the days when you 'hand' edited .Xsession in order to
change your window manager... if you where lucky to get an X term
instead of a vt100 term.

That kind of user is not advanced enough unless you mean to point to a
sawfish user who understands rep. Having more than two brain cells is
not advanced enough, just a multiple of 50% more intelligent than a
2 BC owner.

He may even just want a lighter window manager (aewm for one) like his
'techie' friend told him since that would help improve the performance of
his old hardware!

> Given as how things seem to be going in the direction that configuration
> like metacity fonts and themes will be tied into the existing setup,
> allowing average users to run a WM like Sawfish then have a bunch of
> options to "Change Window Borders" or "Change Window Title Fonts" that
> don't affect their window borders/titles will be bad.

Yes. But then, a GNOME compliant window manager can just listen to these
gconf keys and adapt itself, regardless of what wm we're talking about.
So the capplet would have to be bright enough to only show GNOME
compliant window managers (or at least, according to that version of GNOME) in
order to reduce this problems I don't know if that would mean using
heuristics (not very good) or just leaving that responsability on the window
manager (it would register itself somewhere on install, which I think is a
better way)!

> An option to change window-managers is just horrible for a desktop that
> is supposed to be an integrated whole.  Might as well add back in an
> option to switch between GMC and Nautilus if we want that much of a
> usability nightmare.  (note - anyone suggesting such a feature should be
> kicked in the skin.  twice.)

<sarcasm>
  I suggest changing to MS Windows if you like integrated holes[2].
</sarcasm>

GNOME is not just for those kinds of users. That said, at least a
gconf-key should be there:

There is:
    /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager:

Well, just imagine[3]:
    /desktop/gnome/applications/file_manager:
     draw_desktop = true
     exec = /usr/bin/nautilus
     default_view = icons

Etcetera.

Hugs, Rui

[1] http://www.darwinawards.com/
[2] intentional typo ;)
[3] please don't kick me in the skin. twice.