Re: Proposal: "Preview" shell for EoG/gpdf/ggv

[Jens Finke <jens triq net>]

Hi,

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> So, Martin and Jaka have already posted about the idea of a single shell for
> viewing PS and PDF files using the ggv and gpdf backends.
> 
> It occured to me this afternoon that EoG worked exactly the same way - it's
> an image viewing component with a minimal shell. Wouldn't it be cool if all
> three components used the same shell for static document viewing? (It would
> work very similarly to Apple's "Preview" utility in OS X.) Other apps could
> easily install components for this shell too... Holy cow -> Bonobo in the
> real world!

I think on the bonobo interface side, there is almost everything there
(and eg. EoG does mostly all of it already):

Bonobo::Control (main embedding component stuff)
Bonobo::PersistFile (for loading/saving URIs)
Bonobo::Zoomable (zoom related interface)
Bonobo::PropertyBag (storing status information)

AFAICS there remain two major issues left for discussion:  

1) The supported menu structure. All views share the same menu and must
fit into a unique scheme. Basically, I think this will end up using a very 
similar structure like nautilus. EoG does this already (on the xml level), 
since it should seamlessly fit into the nautilus shell. And I think this 
will apply to nearly all other views too. 

2) The required/supported property values. A lot of status information 
must/should be reported to the surrounding shell through properites. This 
has the advantage that the shell can install listeners for these very 
easily. 

I think both discussions have the potential to create a gnome wide
component standard, a thing which is really needed. The lack of such
standards prevent the spread of component reusing. You can't embed a
component in your application when you end up with two 'View' menus in
your menubar, due to incompatible ui-xml descriptions.

These two issues, I guess, also prevented a wider use of the generic shell
Martin B. (IIRC) wrote in the early days of bonobo. But we all have much 
more experiences now, so I think it is possible and a very good idea.

Best wishes,

    Jens